Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts

Sunday, December 29, 2024

Lessons and Carols and Theology Ancient and Modern

Many churches today will do a Service of Lessons and Carols.  It's a great way to give church folks a lower-key Sunday, after the work-intense week that includes Christmas Eve and perhaps Christmas morning.  Musicians already know the music, and if pastors don't want to preach, the lessons do the work.  Many churches won't have communion, so more people can take the day off--after all, pastors have families too, and many of them haven't had much holiday time with those families.

When I was younger, I loved this service.  Of course, when I was younger, I loved everything about Advent and Christmas, and I wondered why church services throughout the year were no match for Christmas Eve.  Even today, the Christmas Eve service seems the most perfect to me.  I know I should love Easter best, but I don't.

One of the gifts seminary has given me is an appreciation for various theologies that have been squashed throughout church history--and not just appreciation, but hearing about them at all.  I will always wonder what might have happened if Pelagius had become the go-to theologian, not Augustine.   Just imagine it:  a church based on God's love of all of creation, not a church based on ideas of a fallen, unworthy creation.  What if the idea of sin took a back seat to ideas about the beauty of creation?

Alas, most of us aren't living in that world, which is one reason why Easter isn't my favorite.  Even though we have an empty tomb at Easter, we also get a lot of substitutionary atonement theology in an Easter service, lots of references to that old rugged cross.  And if that's true in ELCA Lutheran churches, I can only imagine how much worse it might be in more conservative churches.

But Christmas Eve is different.  We might want to lean into Christmas Eve as a story of God vs. Roman empire--well some of us pastor folks/social justice folks might.  But Christmas Eve is about beauty, about a Divine love so huge that God comes to be with us, to experience all of human life.

I've often marveled at the idea of God who is willing to be a baby, willing to be a teenager, willing to experience pain the way we do.  Again, I think of a different way that church/theology might have helped me frame this differently:  a God who wants to experience the exquisite wonder and awe of being human.  If I had it framed this way, earlier, preached from the pulpit, maybe it would have taken me less time to feel wonder and awe at being human, less time feeling trapped in my body, my fallen body in all of its femaleness (the way the Church has framed it through the ages). 

I write today, surrounded by Christmas beauty, lights and decorations that will soon be packed away.  It's a good day for thinking about ways to keep this wonder and awe going throughout the year.  Now that's a new year's resolution that makes me happy.

Wednesday, December 25, 2024

Christmas Eve Report

At the end of the day yesterday, when I realized I was very tired (a good tired, but tired), my spouse said, "Of course.  You spent the whole day getting ready for the Christmas Eve service."  My first response was, "No I didn't."  But then I realized that with the exception of some grocery shopping and a short walk, yes, I did indeed spend the day getting ready for the service, experiencing the service, and then coming back across the mountain.

It was a great day.  



I spent several hours making angels from fabric, only to get to the church to remember that we don't do a youth sermon on Christmas Eve.  Ah well--I'll use them later.  And it might work out well, because my little angels won't be competing with so much for their attention.

The church was beautiful, as was the music.  If you'd like to hear/watch the sermon, I am happy to be able to say that I've downloaded it to my YouTube channel, and you can access it here.

Everyone was in a great mood, which is one of my favorite aspects of Christmas Eve.   I've baptized three babies since being at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, TN, and all three were at worship last night--I felt a bit awestruck by it all.  I didn't expect to get a second Christmas with this congregation, and I felt overwhelming gratitude to be there.

I was also grateful that my spouse was well enough to be there.  It's been a tough autumn, and part of what made it tough is that my spouse was struggling with pulled muscles which led to extreme pain (happily resolved by bed rest, which was also a struggle) and then for the past 3 weeks, he's had a cold.  

I expected heavier traffic, especially during our trip over--we left at 2:30, and the traffic was more like Sunday morning than what I thought Christmas Eve afternoon would be.  When we travel through the mountains at night, I'm always startled by how dark it is, but happily, my spouse was nonplussed.

After the service, everyone took pictures by the Chrismon tree.  When the organist asked if we'd like her to take our picture, we said yes.


I'm not thrilled with this picture--who are these older people?  I want to believe that we don't look like this in real life.  We're both carrying extra weight, and I feel like I look even frumpier than usual in this photo.  But I'm also at the point where I care less.  Yes, I am heavier because I'm not spending several hours each day trying hard to keep weight off.  Keeping weight off takes extraordinary focus and rigidity on my part.  But despite extra weight, I'm healthy, and for that I am grateful.

Today will be a quieter day--we have a turkey to roast, and I think it's defrosted.  It will be not as cold this afternoon (52 degrees for a high), so I hope to take a walk.  Our families are far away, so there won't be extended family time today.  So today won't feel vastly different from other days, the way that Christmas did when I was a child.

But I am grateful:  grateful to have survived this tumultuous autumn mostly unscathed (but not unchanged), grateful to have several jobs which I love and which nourish me, grateful for health and a new roof over my head (bought and installed just a few weeks before the hurricane) and water that comes out of the tap that I can drink again.

Tuesday, December 24, 2024

A Sermon for Christmas Eve

 December 24, 2024

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott


Luke 2: 1-20


Finally, the night we’ve waited for:  our Advent watching and staying alert is about to pay off!  Christmas Eve at last!  Soon we will open presents and do lots of cooking followed by lots of eating—all sorts of celebrating, and we can rest.

Well no--our Gospel text reminds us that we can’t just put aside our watching and waiting and take a long winter’s nap.  We’ve heard the text so much that it may feel like a soft Christmas pudding of a reading:  a sweet tale, easy to digest, easy to swallow.  Maybe we let it slip by us as we look at the pretty Christmas sights that won’t be with us much longer.  Maybe our brain is already jumping ahead to tomorrow:  is the turkey going to thaw in the fridge?  Should we have chosen something different?  Is that one unusual eater a vegan or vegetarian?  When does our long winter’s nap start?

Tonight’s text warns us of the dangers of distractions, the dangers of falling fast asleep.  The beginning of tonight’s Gospel roots us in a specific time and place, with rulers who get to decide who is important and who is not.  Everyone will be registered!  Some of us will recognize this world of documenting, counting and accounting, sorting and categorizing.  Some of us will remember that when rulers start to see humans as simply resources that need to report for registration, nothing good usually happens next, at least not for ordinary people.  Maybe it will be higher taxes or maybe military service or maybe deportation or maybe worse.

Then as now, we see a world of weary people on the move.  Maybe they are happy to return to ancestral homes—maybe their heads are full of the hope of family reunions and rich conversation.  Maybe they are exhausted from the trip.  Maybe they are wary of the dangers that lie ahead.  Maybe they have never been to their ancestral home, so they don’t know the customs, don’t have connections.  All these people, full of fear.

The Gospel passage for tonight begins with the the rich and powerful, but by the center of the story, we spend time with an ordinary couple, a young couple, a firstborn son coming into a world where there is no room.  God comes to be with humanity, but in a brand new way, a brand new way that is also an ordinary way, a very messy way.  A new thing is being born, a new phase of a relationship, far away from the corridors of earthly power.  But most people aren’t noticing.  Most people have no idea because they aren’t paying attention.

We move to the third part of the story:  an angel comes to herald the good news, not to the emperor, not to the people who make it onto the “best of” lists, not to the man of the year, not to the ones with the power to disrupt lives in ways pleasant and unpleadant.  No, the angels appear to shepherds, to ones even further away from the power structures than the couple with the newborn.  Are the shepherds so insignificant that they don’t have to go back to ancestral homes to be registered?  Or are they the ones who have occupied the same pastures for generations, so they don’t have to worry about travel?  Maybe we find ourselves in this part of the story, off to the side, on the outside of the insignificant towns, taking solace in our animals or maybe a good friend or two.  Families gather, but we have jobs we need to do.  Rulers of countries bluster and blather, but they have no idea how people are living on the ground, and so we do our work, unnoticed.

Shepherds hear the good news first.  Were other people sleeping, so they missed the angel choir?  Would the bright lights of the little town nearby make it impossible to see the celestial show?  Did no one else hear the angel song?  Was everyone else too busy to notice or too unimaginative to look up and follow the unusual noise?

We live in a much noisier world today, but this story has resonance.  Don’t doze, or you might miss the good news of what God is doing in the world.  Pay attention.  The life changing, creative, restorative work of God in the world is not finished—it is just begun.

Hear again the message of the angel in charge:  Be Not Afraid.  What a different message than what we usually get from the people in charge. Too often those people want us to be very afraid, to see the world as a scary place, so that we will look to them for solutions and salvation. The angels call us to a different reality, a world soaked in wonder, a glimpse of the world that we see on Christmas Eve.

Once again, consider the shepherds.  We’ve heard the news that the angel brings so many times that it’s lost its weirdness.  The Messiah has arrived—and the sign will be—a baby in a manger? That’s your sign?  A baby?  A manger?  Sure, symbolically it works.  A feeding trough, which is an image that will run through the Gospels:  God as food.  But as a sign that the Savior is here?  A vulnerable, dependent infant--not a powerful ruler?  A manger--not a throne?

The curious and observant shepherds decide to go and see this Good News for themselves, leaving their livelihoods behind.  There’s no arguing, no trying to have it both ways, no leaving one shepherd behind to keep watch while the others go ahead to investigate.  I have often envied the shepherds the clear sign that they get, the clear message.  If only I could have an angel choir, one single sign so loud that it cuts through all the other noise of life—yes, an angel choir might be so much easier to make life decisions.  Of course, often when we look back, we’re amazed at the messages we convinced ourselves to ignore, God’s invitations that we’re sure were meant for other people, people in a different phase of life or with different resources and skills.

We began this Gospel with an empire paying attention in an ominous way, and we end with a mother keeping watch, much like the shepherds did.  Mary treasures the words of the shepherd, much like we will treasure the memories of this Christmas, in years to come.  Mary also ponders—a focused watching, a trying to make sense of it all.

It’s good to remember that the story doesn’t end here—and hence the need for observant watching.  The story of God at work in the world doesn’t end with the manger.  It doesn’t end with the Messiah on the cross.  It doesn’t even end with the empty tomb.  God is at work in the world, and God invites us to the party.  I realize that on Sunday, I preached in part about the benefit of rest and retreat, as Mary and Elizabeth withdraw and wait for the next chapter.

It’s the tension we live in, like the Kingdom of God itself, inbreaking but not here yet, underway, but not complete.  There are times when we need retreat and rest and pondering, like Mary and times when we need to be moving in the world, like the shepherds, moving to meet God in the unlikely, unexpected places where God appears.  When we’re observant, we’ll know which way to go.  When we pay attention, we’ll be able to ignore the noise of our society so that we can hear the angel song.  Most important, when we maintain our Advent alertness, our watchful waiting, we’ll be able to turn our lives into a manger that welcomes God.  We’ll be able to, in the words of Biblical scholar Barbara Reid, “have a disposition of hospitality toward God.”  Our Advent and Christmas stories remind us:  opening our lives, our beings, to this hospitality to God is so often how God is able to work in the world.  Let this be the year that we close our ears to the noise and distractions so that we can hear God’s call.


Monday, January 1, 2024

A Sermon for Christmas and New Year's Day

A week ago, we'd be waking up to Christmas morning. Before we get any further away, let me post my Christmas Eve sermon--it seems like a good sermon for New Year's Day too.


Luke 2: 1-20

I imagine that most of us have spent much of our lives hearing and telling this story of how Jesus came into the world. Most of us hear it at least once a year, at worship services like this one. Many of us have been part of Sunday School pageants that dramatized the story. And if we haven’t, we’ve probably gone to see beloved family members in Christmas pageants and holiday offerings of all sorts.

As I thought about this sermon, I thought, what new could I possibly have to say? And then I went for a walk with a pastor friend of mine who has a son who is the campus minister at the University of South Carolina. She told me about her son’s radically different approach to the Luke narrative, and I spent the next day researching to see if her son could possibly be correct.

In a nutshell, we may have spent much of the last part of Christendom interpreting the word “Inn” incorrectly. The Greek word used here in Luke may be interpreted several ways, and one of those is “guest room.” It’s a different word from the one that the writer of Luke uses in the parable of the Good Samaritan, when the Samaritan brings the robbery victim to an inn and takes care of all the charges. So, how does the Nativity story change if there is no room for Joseph and Mary in the guest room?

The circumstances that have them in Bethlehem so close to Mary’s due date help to explain the guest room shortage. Let us consider the issue of Roman taxation, the stated reason that Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem. Many scholars are quick to point out that this kind of imperial decree to return to one’s ancestral home to be registered likely did not happen the way that Luke tells us here: it would have been more realistic for the census to be taken in the place where people lived, and the records that we have of this kind of census say that they happened at a different time and under different rulers. In either case, the writer of Luke makes sure that we realize that the birth of Jesus happens during a time of extreme Roman oppression, the kind of oppression that forces pregnant women to travel great distances, the kind of oppression that the gospel writer’s audience still suffered, the kind of oppression that so many have endured through the centuries as long as humans have lived under the iron grip of empire.

The Roman decree that all citizens must be taxed gets Joseph and Mary back to Bethlehem and gives the gospel writer a chance to show the pedigree of Jesus, that he is part of the royal line of David. This part of the plot also helps us understand why our view of an inn might be a wrong interpretation.

We’re told that they return to Bethlehem, Joseph’s ancestral home. If Joseph returns to his ancestral home with a young and very pregnant fiancee, he would have family members who would have to take him in. In work that explores the Middle Eastern cultural background of the Gospels, Kenneth E. Bailey notes, “Even if he has never been there before he can appear suddenly at the home of a distant cousin, recite his genealogy, and he is among friends. Joseph had only to say, ‘I am Joseph, son of Jacob, son of Matthan, son of Eleazar, the son of Eliud,’ and the immediate response must have been, ‘You are welcome. What can we do for you?’ And if Joseph did have some member of the extended family residing in the village, he was honor-bound to seek them out. Furthermore, if he did not have family or friends in the village, as a member of the famous house of David, for the ‘sake of David,’ he would still be welcomed into almost any village home.”

Those of us unfamiliar with the geography of the area might not realize that Mary also has relatives nearby—Elizabeth and Zechariah live in the hill country of Judea, which is near Bethlehem.

When Joseph and Mary had to return to their ancestral home, it’s likely that other relatives needing hospitality had gotten there before them—after all, everyone must return to their ancestral home, so many people will be on the move. So, here we have another reason for a more accurate translation: “There was no room for them in the guest room.” But that doesn’t mean they would be turned away, particularly given Mary’s late-stage pregnancy. There might not be a guest room, but there’s always room in the family room, the main living area—which would have looked very different than what we think of when we say living room.

Let’s talk about the manger. Luke is very clear that Mary puts Jesus in a feeding trough. In first century Palestine, most people would need to gather their animals inside for the night for a variety of reasons, primarily safety. An animal was an investment—by bringing it inside, you could keep it safe and not have to hire help to watch over the barn. Plus, in a time before central heating, the extra body heat from the animals would be welcome.

Any number of archaeological approaches to this text have shown that most first century homes of people wealthy enough to have an animal would be split level homes: “There is a small, lower level for the animals at one end. About 80 percent of the one room is a raised terrace on which the family cooks, eats and lives” (Bailey). One diagram I saw shows the animals kept on a level a few stairs down, with the feeding troughs at the far end of the living level. [Use the space in the front of the church to demonstrate]

The manger is an important element for another significant reason: the shepherds. Let us consider the shepherds. In the time of Jesus, shepherds were part of the lower rungs of society, those smelly people who lived in the fields with the sheep, the ones who had difficult lives in so many ways. And they get to hear the Good News first. They will recognize the baby because he’s in a manger, surrounded by animals—in a sense, this baby is one of them. They, too, spend their lives surrounded by animals that they need to protect. And it works gorgeously as a symbol: the literal shepherds, who in a normal story would be the least likely to greet the Messiah, the shepherds get to be the first to see the shepherd of the world.

Throughout Luke’s Gospel, we see this inversion of what we might ordinarily expect, particularly if we had been schooled in Greek and Roman culture. This time period of Jesus’ birth and the subsequent time when the Gospel was written—these are time periods where the birth of someone important to the history of the world would not happen in the family room of a peasant house, just steps away from the animals. The mother of someone important would be a member of royalty, not an unmarried woman from the lower levels of society. A God coming into the world would be expected in Rome, not in Bethlehem, far from the center of power, and lowly shepherds wouldn’t be the first to have an audience with the new king. Luke begins his Gospel by showing us that God works in a very different way than our culture expects God to act, that salvation will come to us in ways we didn’t expect, in forms that are hardly recognized by unexpected people.

We forget how gritty this story is because we’ve had centuries of Christmas pageants and art that depicts a cozy manger scene. In fact, if you asked people to tell you what they think of when they think of the life of Christ, they’re likely to mention something from this Nativity story—or the cross. Many fewer think of the teachings of the Beatitudes, the demand for justice, love, service, and faith.

As I’ve read about how we came to have this image of Jesus in a barn, a barn which is often depicted as a 3 sided lean-to in so many of our creche scenes, I was surprised to find out that for the first 6 or 7 centuries of Christianity, much of the art depicting the life of Jesus was not of Jesus’ birth, death or resurrection. The earliest centuries of Christian art show Jesus at work in the world, particularly the work that involved miracles.

It’s different today. Our 21st century culture seems most happy with either the cute manger baby God or the brutalized body on the cross. Many forces don’t want us to see God at work in the world, much less accept God’s invitation to be part of the creation of something new. The misreading of the baby Jesus, born in a cold manger in a faraway place leads many of us to think of Jesus as a solitary force in the world. The idea of Jesus born into a a living room surrounded by extended family and the sounds and smells of animals and shepherds gives us a different picture.

From the beginning, Jesus is part of a loving community, a community that gathers in part because their government forced them to, in part because they are related. In his life, Jesus continues to create community and showed people how to survive in the face of aching loneliness and other desperate circumstances. These are qualities the world is in deep need of in our own time.

The world needs people with community creation skills. We are those people. Jesus went about changing the world in just the ways that the world needs now.

In the coming weeks, as we gather together to share a holiday meal or to exchange gifts or to welcome in a new calendar year, let’s think about how that baby Jesus, born into community, went out to continue that work of building caring community wherever he went.

Let us look around our own living rooms and recognize the ways that God continues to come into the world. Let us not leave the baby in that manger or move too quickly to the cross. Jesus has work to do in the world—and so do we, the community of Christians that he created.

For further study:

These two websites have an essay by Kenneth E. Bailey that gives some of the information given in the above academic article:

 

https://pres-outlook.org/2006/12/the-manger-and-the-inn-a-middle-eastern-view-of-the-birth-story-of-jesus/

 

 

https://biblearchaeology.org/research/new-testament-era/2803-the-manger-and-the-inn

 

I hope to read this book soon; the excerpt that I read deepens the arguments in the articles that I found on the web sites above:


Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels IVP Academic: 2008

 


Monday, December 25, 2023

Christmas Eve in Two Mountain Churches

Yesterday, we had a leisurely Sunday morning for the first time in a long time.  But it was different in a way; we knew we needed to be on the road by 11:30.  Faith Lutheran Church in Bristol, Tennessee, where I am a Synod Appointed Minister, had only one service yesterday at 2:00.

When we got there and plugged in some lights, the church looked like this, with sun streaming through the red glass windows in the front:


The candles couldn't really compete, but it was beautiful in its own way.  The service went well.  Everyone was in a good mood, and most things went smoothly.  I did get tangled in my words when I consecrated the bread, but I corrected.  And this congregation is fairly unflappable as far as I can see.  I get the idea that if I'm making a good effort, they won't cause a ruckus.  Part of it is because I'm temporary, and part of it just seems to be the congregational personality.

I do feel lucky.  I think about my younger self and how judgmental I was and how I wanted so much more than I was getting from church, whether it be sermons or fellowship or volunteering opportunities.  Then I got the kind of job that made it difficult to take advantage of those things, the 45-60 hour a week job in education administration, which gave me a different view.  And yesterday, when I got tongue tangled, I thought about my younger self who would have said, "You say these words week after week--why can't you say them without screwing it all up?"  Now I know.

My sermon went well, and I'll post it on this blog site at some point soon.  When I was writing it, it seemed rather radical at first, and by the time I was done revising it, I thought it was blah.  That's often a trajectory with my writing, whether it's sermon writing, poetry writing, academic writing, or something else.  The congregation stayed focused, and no one seemed outraged or bored or eye rolling.

We mingled a bit after church and then headed out.  Some of the church folks planned to come back after sunset, re-light all the candles, and then take pictures.  I thought we were heading home to veg out and go to bed early.

Instead, my spouse started thinking about going to the 7:00 service at the Lutheran church just minutes from our Lutheridge house.  We put our dinner dishes in the dishwasher (left over pot roast that had turned into beef stew), threw on our dressier clothes, and headed over.  This sanctuary is very different than the little country church in Bristol:


It was great to be back at that church where we have so many friends from so many different stages of our life:  Create in Me friends, choir friends, quilt group friends, neighborhood friends, and even friends of my nuclear family, meaning friends from the time my mom was a camp counselor in the very earliest days of Lutheridge. 

Today is likely to be a rainy Christmas, which is fine with me. We are not traveling, and any cooking that we're doing can be done either indoors or out.  We have no one coming over.  We will make at least one phone call, but mostly, yesterday was our big holiday celebration.  Some years I might feel sad about that, but this year, a low key Christmas day sounds good.

Sunday, December 24, 2023

Christmas Eve and the Ghost of Christmas Past

Today is a day unlike our regular Sundays.  Instead of getting ready to leave for Bristol, Tennessee by 7:30, we don't need to leave until 11:30.  Faith Lutheran, the church where I am a Synod Appointed Minister, celebrates Christmas Eve at 2, with no morning or evening worship.  I have never gone to an afternoon Christmas Eve service, but it makes sense for this congregation.  I have noticed that many churches no longer do the late night service, the one that begins at 10 p.m. or later.

I have my sermon written, which I'll post tomorrow.  I had thought I might bake a small braid of Santa Lucia bread for every household at the small church, but I didn't have time for that.  It's fine.

We might be home in time to go to a local church's evening service, but we probably won't.  A regular Sunday leaves me a bit worn out, what with traveling and leading worship.

Last year, by this time, we'd be on our way to Hawaii.  Or would we still be sitting in the airport?  In the gate area of the airport, waiting to board the plane, we were near a crew member who was sick; we knew he was sick because he collapsed and vomited.  I thought the flight might be delayed because of the lack of a crew member, but we were told it was because of some airport issue.  Still, soon we were on our way--but we would spend that week in Hawaii with various family members getting sick.  It was not our best family vacation, but we tried to make the best of it.

So today we will travel, but it will be by car, over the mountain.  I am fast approaching the point where I will avoid air travel as much as I can.  Last year we flew to Hawaii and got sick; in September, we flew to Maine and got sick.

A year ago, I had no idea where I would be in a year, but I was coming to think I wasn't likely to be in seminary housing, since it seemed certain to be torn down.  A year ago, I didn't know what I was about to set into motion, by thinking about the possibilities of not living in seminary housing.  And now, here I am with a Synod Appointed Minister position, an internship with the Southeast Synod of the ELCA, and a teaching job at Spartanburg Methodist College.   I am thrilled with these changes.

I thought it would be nice to have a more leisurely Sunday morning, but I really prefer our regular schedule.  It will be nice to have time to go for a walk, to think about this sermon one last time.  I need a sentence or two that explains why any of it matters.

Friday, December 22, 2023

Rethinking My Christmas Eve Sermon

I'm in the process of rethinking my Christmas Eve sermon. Let me capture a few details here.

--Wednesday, I went for a walk with a pastor friend and mentor who lives in the neighborhood. She told me about some ideas that her pastor son presented to the University of South Carolina students, where he is campus pastor. The Greek word for inn is actually much closer to guest room. If we say there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the guest room, does it change our understanding of the Nativity story in the second chapter of Luke? I'm going to write a sermon suggesting that it does, and I'll post it next week.

--If we accept the narrative in the Gospel of Luke that tells us that Joseph returned to his ancestral city, that doesn't square with our current vision of a couple far from home, all alone.  And we tend to forget that Mary's relatives were nearby too; Elizabeth and Zachariah live in the hill country of Judea, which is not that far from Bethlehem.

--If Joseph's relatives wouldn't turn them away, yet there was no room for them in the spare room, Mary may have given birth in the living room, surrounded by far-flung family come back for census/tax reasons.

--What about the manger?  In first century Palestine, people brought their animals inside for the night, and there were feed troughs.

--The work of Dr. Kenneth E. Bailey is important in so many ways.  This article gives a sense of the scope of his argument and how it can reshape our view of the life of Jesus.

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Drama Kid Powers Activate! The Return to Bethlehem

I spent some time this week working on getting the space ready for the Return to Bethlehem experience.  Two months ago, a friend of mine asked if I would help, and I said yes, even though I wasn't exactly sure what would be involved.  I thought it might be something like a living Nativity scene, maybe with a few extra scenes.

I was wrong.  It's a whole living Nativity village.  One of the supervisors walked me through the space, telling me about how the visitors would stop at each station to hear actors tell about the space.  For example, there's a weaver's house, and the Temple, and a place where a person dyes cloth.  Eventually the tour ends up at the inn and the stable outside of the inn.

I do wonder a bit about the content.  I hope it's not anti-Jewish, and with the subject being Christ's birth, maybe it's not.  But the man who was working with me did say that the stop at the Temple has the priest talking and children asking about the star and the priest talking about the backwards shepherds.  Hmm.  And there's a spot on the tour where a Pharisee is holding forth.  I know that the potential for antisemitism is there.

But it's a script that has been paid for, written by a national group.  It might have a more conservative skew than I would like, but at least with the Nativity story, it's not likely to go as wrong as the Crucifixion end can go, with substitutionary atonement theory and antisemitic messages right and left.

I thought it was a church that puts this on, and I marveled that Groce United Methodist Church in Asheville was big enough (in terms of people, money, and space) to do this.  Come to find out, it's a different group that puts it all together, and different churches can host.  Of course, very few people have a big enough space.  There needs to be a fellowship hall that's the size of a gym.  Here's a picture of people getting the space ready for us to finish--you can see the theatre flats that we're using:



Each space had a picture of what the space looked like in a past year, along with tubs of supplies.  We assembled as best we could.  Here's a picture of what the Temple looked like before:



And here's the after: 



It took over an hour to assemble the Temple.  I did start counting all the spaces and thinking about the fact that the show opens Thursday night.  Happily, not every space will take that long.  I was part of the two person team that did the dye shop, and it only took about half an hour to get this space ready:



I'm enjoying the work.  It takes me back to my undergrad days, when I had a student worker job in the theatre department, creating sets.  It brings me the joy that fashioning worship spaces for my Florida church gave me.  And I'm needed--yesterday we didn't have many volunteers to do the work.

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

The Feast Day of Saint Nicholas

Today, all over Europe, the gift-giving season begins. I had a friend in grad school who celebrated Saint Nicholas Day by having each family member open one present on the night of Dec. 6. It was the first I had heard of the feast day, but I was enchanted.

Still, I don't do much with this feast day--if I had children or gift-giving friends, I might, but most years, I simply pause to remember the historical origins of the saint and the day.

In different years, I might have spent some time looking at my own Santa objects. One year, my step-mom in law and my father in law gave me these as Christmas presents:



They're actually cookie presses, and the Santa figures are the handles of the press. I've never used them as a cookie press, but I love them as decorations that are faithful to the European country of origin.

It's always a bit of a surprise to realize that Saint Nicholas was a real person. But indeed he was. In the fourth century, he lived in Myra, then part of Greece, now part of Turkey; eventually, he became Bishop of Myra. He became known for his habit of gift giving and miracle working, although it's hard to know what really happened and what's become folklore. Some of his gift giving is minor, like leaving coins in shoes that were left out for him. Some were more major, like resurrecting three boys killed by a butcher.

My favorite story is the one of the poor man with three children who had no dowry for them. No dowry meant no marriage, and so, they were going to have to become prostitutes. In the dead of night, Nicholas threw a bag of gold into the house. Some legends have that he left a bag of gold for each daughter that night, while some say that he gave the gold on successive nights, while some say that he gave the gold as each girl came to marrying age.

Through the centuries, the image of Saint Nicholas has morphed into Santa Claus, but as with many modern customs, one doesn't have to dig far to find the ancient root.

I don't have as many Santa images in my Christmas decorations. Here's my favorite Santa ornament:



I picked it up in May of 1994 or so. I was visiting my parents, and I went with them on a trip to Pennsylvania where my dad was attending a conference. I picked this ornament up in a gift shop that had baskets of ornaments on sale. I love that it uses twine as joints to hold Santa together.

In the past decade, I've been on the lookout for more modern Saint Nicholas images. A few years ago, one of my friends posted this photo of her Santa display to her Facebook page:


I love the ecumenical nature of this picture of Santa: Santa statues coexisting peacefully with Buddha statues. And then I thought, how perfect for the Feast Day of St. Nicholas!

More recently, I have a new favorite Saint Nicholas image, courtesy of my cousin's wife:





In this image, Santa communicates by way of American Sign Language. As I looked at the background of the photo, I realized Santa sits in a school--the sign on the bulletin board announces free breakfast and lunch.

The photo seems both modern and ancient to me: a saint who can communicate in the language we will hear, the promise that the hungry will be filled.

In our time, when ancient customs seem in danger of being taken over by consumerist frenzy, let us pause for a moment to reflect on gifts of all kinds. Let us remember those who don't have the money that gifts so often require. Let us invite the gifts of communication and generosity into our lives.

Sunday, December 25, 2022

Shortest Sermon Ever

Wishing everyone a joyous winter holiday, no matter which one you're celebrating, and a joyous day if you're not celebrating. Of course, my hope is that every day brings joy and reasons for celebration. But my Foundations of Preaching class is over, so I'll step away from my pulpit.

Tuesday, December 6, 2022

The Feast Day of Saint Nicholas

 It is the feast day of Saint Nicholas, and I don't have much to offer in terms of my own decorations.  I do have a new picture:


I am not sure if these blow up creatures are supposed to go together.  Is there some new movie I don't know about?  Lyle, Lyle Crocodile Saves Christmas?  Is that Lyle the Crocodile?  Clearly the other character is Santa, the character derived from Saint Nicholas.

It's always a bit of a surprise to realize that Saint Nicholas was a real person. But indeed he was. In the fourth century, he lived in Myra, then part of Greece, now part of Turkey; eventually, he became Bishop of Myra. He became known for his habit of gift giving and miracle working, although it's hard to know what really happened and what's become folklore. Some of his gift giving is minor, like leaving coins in shoes that were left out for him. Some were more major, like resurrecting three boys killed by a butcher.

My favorite story is the one of the poor man with three children who had no dowry for them. No dowry meant no marriage, and so, they were going to have to become prostitutes. In the dead of night, Nicholas threw a bag of gold into the house. Some legends have that he left a bag of gold for each daughter that night, while some say that he gave the gold on successive nights, while some say that he gave the gold as each girl came to marrying age.

Through the centuries, the image of Saint Nicholas has morphed into Santa Claus, but as with many modern customs, one doesn't have to dig far to find the ancient root.  I don't have many Santa Claus ornaments or decorations, but I do collect favorite pictures.  Here's one my grad school friend posted years ago to her Facebook page:


I love the ecumenical nature of this picture of Santa: Santa statues coexisting peacefully with Buddha statues. And then I thought, how perfect for the Feast Day of St. Nicholas!

More recently, a new favorite Saint Nicholas image, courtesy of my cousin's wife:




In this image, Santa communicates by way of American Sign Language. As I looked at the background of the photo, I realized Santa sits in a school--the sign on the bulletin board announces free breakfast and lunch.

The photo seems both modern and ancient to me: a saint who can communicate in the language we will hear, the promise that the hungry will be filled.

In our time, when ancient customs seem in danger of being taken over by consumerist frenzy, let us pause for a moment to reflect on gifts of all kinds. Let us remember those who don't have the money that gifts so often require. Let us invite the gifts of communication and generosity into our lives.

Saturday, July 30, 2022

Camp Christmas in July

Today is the last day of the summer 2022 summer season at Lutheridge, the church camp and conference center. The last week has been Christmas in July.  What a strange treat!




At the beginning of the week, as I took my morning walk, I didn't notice much that was different.  But as the week went on, Christmas began to take hold:





I thought I saw lights through a distant window, and then, when I walked on the porch of the dining hall, sure enough, there were lights!



I don't have a picture to demonstrate my favorite morning memory from the week.  On the lawn of the Faith Center I saw a huge inflatable of a Disney snowman--Olaf from Frozen maybe?  As I walked down the hill, a group of elementary school girl campers hiked up.  They exclaimed in such wonder that I turned to see what they were seeing.  One of them had said, "Oh, it's so big."  And indeed, it did seem to loom up in the distance.

As I continued my walk down the hill to the lake, another set of campers hiked by.  Their counselor was trying to get them to sing "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" to distract them from the steepness of the hill.  I sang along.

Last night, the Lutheridge Residential Community was invited to closing vespers.  Through the years as I've thought about what it would be like to live at Lutheridge, I had thought about going to vespers each night during the summer, which may no longer be an option.  So I wanted to make sure to go last night.  Plus, during my walk, I had seen several tables full of paper bags.  I had a vision of luminarias lighting the way to the chapel.




It was not that kind of service.  But after all, it was designed for a much younger crowd.  We had glow sticks instead of candles and song sheets that I didn't need because I had been singing these Christmas songs for 57 years.

It will be interesting to see how my experience of living on the edge of a church camp changes in the next few weeks when the campers have gone home.  I've enjoyed seeing them as I've been out and about this week.  I am sure the camp will offer other delights when campers have gone.

 

Saturday, December 25, 2021

Pivoting on Christmas Eve

December 24 was a work day for me--not a work in the office day, but a getting ready for Christmas kind of work day.  I didn't mind.  

The day was punctuated with trips to the grocery store.  I went to the grocery store 3 times; I did the big shopping early, before 8 a.m., when I would usually be the only one in the store.  Not yesterday, but I got in and out fairly quickly.  I got home to realize I forgot to buy lemons, so one more trip.  I made this delicious fish dip, which made me realize we would need more baguettes and white wine, instead of as much red as I bought.  I resolve to call my fish dips rillettes from now on.  Late in the day, I went back to the grocery store for more baguettes and white wine.

I met my pastor at 10 at the church.  I had offered to help get the worship space set up for Christmas Eve.  I arrived to a variety of poinsettias and red ornaments with no hanger to attach them to the tree.  We took off the blue ornaments and used the hangers for the red ornaments.  Unlike past years, we did not scamper up ladders.  This is not the time in the life of our nation to risk a fall and a trip to the emergency room.

The local grocery store had gotten our poinsettia order wrong.  We ordered all red; we got some red, some white, some pink/variegated.  We ordered big; we got 1 big variegated plant and the rest were the smaller plants.  The local grocery store felt so bad that they gave us 6 wreaths made with real greens.  Granted, they weren't likely to sell them yesterday.  But still, I liked the gesture, even as I wasn't sure where to put them.

I decided to begin with the easy task, the putting red balls on the trees and taking off the majority of the blue Advent balls.  As I did that, I thought about the poinsettias.  Often we've put them at the railing, but they were so tiny, I thought they might not be seen.

And so, we went with a different approach, and it was lovely.  From a distance, one couldn't see how puny the poinsettias are, and the non-Christmas colors of the paper wrapping the pots blended into the background.  We decided not to use the formal candelabras and just rely on the white candles.  



I would have been happy to spend the Christmas Eve service in silence and candles, just soaking in the beauty.  

 



But we had a service of readings and singing and a homily, and the Eucharist.  We had to pivot here, too, with soloists out because of sinus infections and COVID exposure.  I thought of all the weeks of drama about who would sing which song, and in the end, we had to switch some of the music.

I am not immune to the life lesson contained here: the ability to pivot, the beauty that is possible if we can let go of our preconceived notions of what the experience and the space should be.

Friday, December 24, 2021

Second Christmas Eve in a Global Pandemic

Here we are at Christmas Eve, a very strange Christmas Eve as a much more contagious variant of COVID-19 is ripping across the country.  As far as I know, our Christmas Eve service will go on as scheduled.  We can likely spread out across the worship space and keep the in-person crowd safe, and we'll livestream for the ones who need to stay away.

It's a very strange Christmas Eve, but humanity has had a variety of strange Christmas Eves.  In some ways, the message of Christmas Eve is even more important during times of stress.  Many of us hear the Christmas Eve message as something warm and cozy, but surely something warm and cozy was not the kind of message delivered by the angels to the shepherds.

Earlier this month, I made this sketch.  I hadn't intended to include the manger and the stable that appeared:



Do you see the descending dove in the picture?  The dove appeared before the manger.  I've returned to this picture often in December, meditating on the message it contains.  I'm also intrigued by the river rolling through the middle of the picture, the river that contains planets.  Or do we just see circles?

But I digress.  Back to the Christmas Eve message, God incarnate, God wanting to know us so deeply that God takes on human flesh.

God come to be with us in person?  God choosing to be born to poor peasants living at the edge of a powerful empire?  What can it all mean?

Here's what Richard Rohr said in his daily post this morning:  "I believe it’s all a school. And it’s all a school of love. And everything is a lesson—everything. Every day, every moment, every visit to the grocery store, every moment of our so-ordinary life is meant to reveal, “My God, I’m a daughter of God! I’m a son of the Lord! I’m a sibling of Christ! It’s all okay. I’m already home free! There’s no place I have to go. I’m already here!” But if we don’t enjoy that, if we don’t allow that, basically we fall into meaninglessness."

That message, too, is not one that worshippers will likely hear tonight.  Perhaps worshippers won't hear a sermon at all or maybe it will be a Christmas pageant.  Maybe, like the Peanuts gang, we'll hear the story from the Gospel of Luke, no homily necessary.  Maybe we'll get our message in song.

I am grateful for times of quieter contemplation, so off I go, a Christmas Eve walk in the morning coolness, a time to think about the twinkly lights, the sun that rises every morning, and the ending of a year.

Monday, December 20, 2021

Meditation for Christmas and Beyond

As we move through the end of the Christmas season, let us take some time to think about this baby in the manger.  Let us think about God who decides that the best way to be with us is to take on human form, not the human form of someone powerful, but a baby born to peasants.  Let us marvel at this kind of vulnerability as we think about ways to be vulnerable ourselves.

But let us not leave the baby in the manger, as my pastor put it in a Christmas season almost 10 years ago.  Babies are so cute, and Christmas is so lovely.  No wonder we see such increased attendance on Christmas Eve.  But as my pastor said years ago, if we leave the baby Jesus in the manger that we've missed the important point.

So what is the point?  For some Christians, it's Christ on the cross.  There are all sorts of reasons to focus on the cross.  The cross for some of us is as potent a symbol of God's love as the manger.  For some of us it's a powerful reminder of what we risk when we try to embody God's love in the world,  the cross as capital punishment, the forces of empire pitted against the forces of love.  But if we leave the savior on the cross, we've missed the point too.

We are Easter people, after all.  We say we believe in resurrection, the empty tomb.  But do we?  Resurrection in this life?  Do we only believe that Jesus gets to experience resurrection?  If we focus on the empty tomb, we continue to miss the point.  And if we focus on Heaven, we miss the point.

I've had more than one friend snort when I say that.  "If it's not about Heaven, then what is the point of religious faith?" one friend asked in a mix of disgust and disbelief.  I would argue that it's about our life right here and now.  Christmas reminds us that God breaks through into our regular lives in amazing ways.

God didn't come to earth to give us a ticket to Heaven.  Many theologians would tell us that Jesus comes to show us how we can be fully human--not so that we can get into Heaven, but so that we can begin to create Heaven right here and now.  Let us remember the message of the Advent angel messengers and the angel choirs and the new star:  the Kingdom of God is inbreaking, right here and right now.  We don't have to wait until we're dead to experience that union with the Divine.

God came to be with us so that we can be part of the redemption of creation.  We move into 2022 in a world that needs to be redeemed in so many ways.  How can we say yes to God's invitation to be part of that redemption? 

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Locating Ourselves in the Advent Christmas Epiphany Story

Before we leave the Christmas and Epiphany narratives, let us take one last look back and see where we are in these stories:

If you are older, and wondering if you've devoted your whole life to a promise that was an elaborate hoax --

If the thudding of your heart wakes you up at night so that you can ponder how all your good plans came to ash and ruin--

If you are part of a highly trained professional elite who sees something new and unexpected in the cold cosmos--

If you feel like a wanderer in a land that has no scent of home--

If you are overtaken by mysteries that you only partly understand--

If you feel old and all used up--

If you are part of an unappreciated part of society, caring for flocks of sheep or students or spreadsheets or patients or products to be sold--

If you feel desperate to keep hold of the small scraps of power that you have--

If you have lost everything--

If you read these stories and feel distant from them--

Know that the Good News comes for us all.  

Some of us will hear it in the form of angel choirs singing so loudly that we can't ignore it.

Some of us will perceive it in a speck of light beamed from a great distance.

Some of us will perceive it in the ways our lives are upended.

Some of us will have to wait a bit longer for the full revelation while at the same time being present to the mysteries.

But know that the inbreaking Kingdom of God is both here now and not quite here yet.  Look ahead to the Baptism of our Lord and the words of God who is pleased with Jesus at the start of his ministry, before he's done anything much at all.


Thursday, December 31, 2020

Vaccine as Metaphor for Inbreaking Kingdom of God

Before we get too far away from Christmas, I want to record some thoughts on the inbreaking Kingdom of God.  The various Christmas stories in the Bible make sense to me without the struggle that I sometimes feel with the Easter stories.  I don't have to suspend my disbelief when it comes to angel visitations and new stars sending a message for those who have been watching and alert.  When it comes to resurrection--resurrections of all sorts--I have much more trouble believing that it can happen, especially on a literal level.

In the days leading up to Christmas, we heard lots of exciting, positive news about the vaccine for COVID-19.  In so many ways, it's a good way of helping people understand the idea that God is here with us, but the whole vision is not yet complete.  Theologians use language like "now and not yet," language which can be confusing for non-theologians.

Here's where the vaccine can help us understand.  We have it, it's been tested, and we know it's going to make our lives better--not perfect, and there might be glitches, but so much better than much of the past year.  The vaccine is here, in physical form, incarnate in the world.  And yet, there's still work to do.  We can't say, "Well, we have a vaccine, so happy endings all around."  

We won't be able to have the better life that the vaccine makes possible if we don't do the work:  we need to distribute the vaccine, we need to convince people to get the vaccine, we need to make sure everyone gets 2 doses, we need to figure out how to pay for it, we need to make sure that every country gets the vaccine.  The path to a better world is ahead, but there are challenges.

Similarly, God shows up throughout our holy texts, but it's almost never the end of the story--in fact, it's the act which often sets the story off on a new trajectory.  With the Christmas story, the inbreaking Kingdom of God is incarnate in Jesus--Jesus who shows up to show us what the full capacity for human life could look like.  It must be a compelling vision--the Roman ruler puts him to death with crucifixion, a form of capital punishment reserved for enemies of the state.

The vaccine metaphor probably won't work with the full Christian story, but it's a great way to understand the concept of now and not yet.  As I was thinking about Christmas and the most hopeful news of the last week, this haiku like creation came to me:


Now yet not complete
Inbreaking kingdom of God
First vaccines given

Monday, December 28, 2020

Remembering All the Slaughtered Innocents

Today is the day we remember the slaughter of all the male children under the age of two in Bethlehem in the days after the birth of Jesus. Why were they killed? Because of Herod's feelings of inadequacy, because of his fear of competitors.

I remember earlier years when I might have written about searching our own hearts to see how much Herod we have in our own outlook towards others.  This week-end, I thought about writing a post that ties Herod to modern politics, but now that Trump has signed the relief package, that impulse feels less pressing.

Or perhaps, to be more accurate, I am tired of thinking about Trump, tired of thinking about his narcissism, tired of the wreckage in the wake of this administration.  And yes, I realize that I have the luxury of feeling tired and deciding to look away, to write about something else.  

Let us take a minute to think about the Holy Family, transformed into refugees, fleeing for their lives with just the clothes on their backs. Here in our modern world, we see no shortage of people transformed from regular citizens to refugees in just a matter of hours.

Maybe we don't want to think on a huge, global scale. The human brain was not meant for such horror. Some of us become immobilized. But we could help refugees on a smaller scale.  We could donate money to groups that help refugees or we could write letters to legislators on the behalf of refugees.  We could work more closely with those groups that help refugees:  tutoring or cooking meals or helping with relocation.  At the very least, we can pray.

Here's a prayer for the day, from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime: "We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you , in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

Friday, December 25, 2020

Christmas Eve, in All Its Strangeness

 I knew it would be a topsy turvy Christmas Eve:  just one church service instead of several, outdoor church with no decorations and no congregational singing.  I thought I would make a pot of clam chowder to have after church.  I thought I might have a restful day ahead of church, a day of reading and contemplation.

But first, I knew I needed to get to the grocery store, so I decided to go early.  As is often the case, I bought more than I anticipated, which meant that the putting away of the groceries took longer than I thought.

I came home to discover that my spouse had finished hanging the pendant lights over the kitchen sink.  Is it just us or are home repairs/improvements going at a much slower pace as we age?  For example, we knew that we would have pendant lights over the kitchen sink; it was always part of the kitchen remodel.  But it took us a long time to decide on the exact lights, to order them, and then to get them hung.  Of course, we have more to choose from in terms of the pendants, the design of the light itself.

And can we talk about how impossible the directions were?  My spouse needed extra time to figure out exactly how to hang them, and it was hard to tell which wire was which.

And then we washed the windows of the living area.

That sounds like such a simple thing, but our windows aren't, which is why we don't wash them often, which is why they get so dirty, which is why we get overwhelmed and don't do them at all.  Yesterday, we finally cut out the wiring from an old alarm system so that we could remove the screens and get to all of the windows.  We spent much of the middle part of Christmas Eve day removing screens, washing screens, and scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing windows and frames and window sills.

Then we tried to recover.  Washing the windows means a lot of stretching and bending--the outside glass of all of our windows are not easy to access--another reason why we don't do this often.  I took a handful of ibuprofen, took a shower, and off we went to church.

We arrived to church to find this, which made me gasp with happiness:



My pastor made the call in the early afternoon to move the 5:30 worship inside, which gave him limited time to decorate the stripped down sanctuary that hasn't been used for worship since spring.  He said he got the last 3 poinsettias from the grocery store and 2 small pine trees from the Home Depot at 25% off.  



He dug the nativity scene out of storage, along with some red balls and pine cones, and voila, a beautiful altar.



I found the service moving, but I am always moved by Christmas Eve, with its nostalgic elements and that message of the good news that God has come to be with us.

We came home to eat the cooked shrimp that I got when I went shopping.  Earlier in the day, I decided not to make the chowder, since it wasn't going to be cold outside.  We ate the last of the delicious popcorn that arrived earlier this week.  I thought about tuning into other services, but in the end, we watched the recording of our own church's service again--my spouse analyzes the music because he's part of the choir, and I control the rudimentary camera, so I'm interested to see how that looks to the people at home.

It was a different Christmas Eve, but I'm not sure I have a regular set of Christmas Eve traditions, the way I have Thanksgiving traditions.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that every Christmas Eve feels strange, now that I am grown.

But strange doesn't mean bad.

Thursday, December 24, 2020

A Calmer Christmas Eve

This Christmas Eve will be unusual, for a Christmas Eve spent with my home congregation.  When we've been home on Christmas Eve, we'd head over to our church in the late afternoon to help with set up.  We'd have a 5:30 service, a 7:00 service, and an 11:00 service, and my spouse and I were part of each one.  Because our church is 30-45 minutes away from our house, we'd stay at church, both to help and for the choir rehearsal that came between the middle and the late service.  And in later years, we've stayed after the late service to count the money.  We'd get home in the wee, small hours of Christmas morning and spend Christmas Day exhausted and cranky.

Tonight we will have one service at 5:30.   It will be in the back lot (2 acres) of the church, unless it's raining, in which case we'll be socially distanced in the church--larger than the fellowship hall but we'll have concerns about the lack of air circulation that we don't have outside.  The service will be livestreamed, if the technology gods are on our side.

In the past we've experimented with the outdoors in our earliest service on Christmas Eve.  Once we had a labyrinth, and one of the more meaningful outdoor Christmas Eves was spent walking the candlelit labyrinth with a guitarist playing gentle versions of Christmas carols.  Because the weather can be iffy, in later years, we've started inside and moved in a procession with candles out to the butterfly garden if the weather held.

Tonight we'll have candles for everyone, but we won't be singing.  Actually, I wonder about that.  These hymns are the most familiar hymns the church has.  Most of us have been singing them for decades.  I can sing verse 1 of almost any hymn from memory, but it's only Christmas hymns where I can sing the rest of the verses from memory.

Tonight we'll stay after the service to count the money and make a deposit.  But we'll still get home in time to have a lovely Christmas Eve supper, along with some pink prosecco that I bought special for tonight.

In some ways, it will be like the Christmas Eve we often have when my family vacations together somewhere else.  We go to a Christmas Eve service at a Lutheran church, which is both meaningful and strange.  And then we eat a yummy meal afterward, a meal we put together, not a meal in a restaurant.

I confess I'm looking forward to a calmer Christmas Eve tonight.  I hope we can hang onto some of these lessons as we move forward.