Category: Holidays

Green Halloween

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So I find myself wondering what to do about Halloween this year. No, not the typical Christian “should I celebrate it or not?” dilemma (more on this on a couple of weeks), but more of a quandary as to what sort of candy to hand out. Unless you are an evil grinch (or a fundamentalist Christian) you give out candy at Halloween. It’s the one night of the year when you are guaranteed to actually meet your neighbors as people get pulled out of the safety of their suburban fortresses by the munchkins dressed as pirates, superheros, and the cast of High School Musical. So I can’t not give out candy.

But I’m facing an ethical dilemma. What do I give? I refuse to support human trafficking and child slavery by buying chocolate from one of the big name distributors. And as the buzz around the new documentary The Price of Sugar raises awareness of slave conditions inflicted on Haitians in the production of our sugar, I don’t want to just go with pure sugar stuff either (and of course trying to avoid high fructose corn syrup as well). I mean, just a few days before Halloween I will be attending a fundraising banquet for relief work in Haiti, how can I then turn around and support systems that cause poverty and oppression in Haiti? It would be easier to be a hypocrite, but that’s not sitting well with me. So that means I need to find fairly traded organic Halloween candy to give out this year.

So once again I set out on a quest to discover if I can engage ethically in my consumption. I go to Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Fruitful Yield. I even look at my local grocery story that just recently made a big deal about the new half aisle of organic stuff they put in. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Oh, Whole Foods had nice autumn boxes of 6 truffles for $7 and Trader Joe’s carries the new chocolate larabar for $1.50 each (super yummy btw), but no bags of individually wrapped easily distributable Halloween candy. I had a bit better luck at Fruitful Yield, they at least carried candy, but not in bulk. I would have to buy each piece individually (at their insane mark-up) if I wanted candy from them. Sorry, but the budget can’t handle that.

Halloween is a $2 Billion dollar a year industry for candy and the average household spends around $17 each year on the candy supply to give out. To break it down – each piece of mini brand name candy costs you between 8-13 cents and the “fun size” pieces are between 20-30 cents each. Depending on the size of your neighborhood, that adds up. Given that the cheapest stuff I found in my search was $.50, I realized that attempting to have an ethical and green Halloween could really cost me. So having no luck visiting actual stores (although on an unrelated note I discovered that Whole Foods carries Shiner beer, in Illinois – much happiness there) I turned to the ever faithful internet.

Thanks to the groundwork done by the wonderful Candy Blog and green LA girl I found what I was looking for. While there doesn’t appear to be loads of options out there, there are some pretty good choices available. Apparently Global Exchange carries an entire Fair Trade Halloween Kit full of candy, decor, and info postcards. Pretty spiffy. I’m also a fan of their fair trade gold coins which will go well with the pirate theme Emma is insisting upon this year. Also available are Endangered Species Bug Bites. These mini-chocolate bars come in milk and dark chocolate varieties and are high on the yummy scale. I let Emma try one and asked if if she thought other kids would like them. She said, “no, just Emma, I eat them all.” We’re working on the sharing thing. Plus each piece comes with a bug trading card which I think are rather fun. If you are looking to avoid chocolate altogether, Yummy Earth carries organic lollipops and hard candy in a variety of interesting flavors (watermelon, pomegranate…). But you have to get orders in now to guarantee delivery by Halloween.

So all of this stuff sounds good to me and are things I can buy without feeling like a hypocrite. I guess the real test will be if the kids like them. But then again, if they don’t, I’ll at least be contributing to the ever necessary “parent’s stash.” So here’s to a green (and ethical) Halloween. Now we shall just see how my attempts to create organic whole wheat pumpkin muffins go over…

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July 4

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So its Empire Worship Day here in the USA. Now I really don’t have an issue with the idea of a national holiday (Holy Day???) and I generally enjoy the bbqs, ice cream socials, and fireworks. But generally this day is a day of idolatry. Even in our churches pledges are said to a foreign god, hymn are sung to a temporal entity, and our citizenship to this country is promoted far above our citizenship to the Kingdom of God. (this article is a must read each year at this time). So this year it was refreshing for the first time in recent memory not to have to engage in idolatry just because I wanted to attend church around July 4. I will not be attending the local fireworks fest where last year the Rebel flag seemed as prominent as the US flag. I will not be twisting the truth and thanking the troops for my freedom to not have to wear a burka. I will continue to be offended by the “If you can read this in English thank a Vet” and the “Does my American Flag Offend You? Call 1-800- LEAVE THE USA” bumper stickers I’ve seen recently. I will try to avoid the worst displays of civil religion and propaganda. Sure I’ll watch the fireworks (not like my neighbors haven’t been setting some off every night for the last two weeks…), maybe even cook some slab of meat out on the grill but I won’t check my mind, my beliefs, and my values at the door in patriotic fervor.

But I will take the historical perspective and reflect on the Declaration of Independence. It’s interesting to read the full thing (not just the first part) where all the grievances against King George are listed. It’s hard to tell which George they are being leveled against and not so hard to understand why our presence isn’t welcome in Iraq (ht- Benjamin Ady). Included in the list as to why the USA engaged in violent revolution against this tyrant are –

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Happy Fourth of July.

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Summer Solstice

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Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. The day when we are blessed with the most light all year long. I love that the focus of the solstices is light not darkness. Today we celebrate the abundance of light and the life if brings to the earth. We give thanks for the first fruits of harvest and take pleasure in the warm days of summer. The focus is not on the return of the darkness but on appreciation of the light. In winter when the darkness is at its greatest, we celebrate the return of the light. We rejoice that light will always overcome the darkness.

We celebrated the Solstice with the alternative parents group I am a part of with a picnic and bubble extravaganza. (what better way to celebrate anything than to have laughing toddlers chase bubbles!) Here is Emma enjoying the occasion.

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Mother’s Day

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So I preached the Mother’s Day sermon this morning (perfect way to honor moms – let them lead and don’t make them cook). Thinking back over the Mother’s Day sermons I have heard at various points in my life – at best they were pathetic attempts to tell moms that they really are contributing something worthwhile to society and at worst were excuses to tell women why God doesn’t want them to work outside the home.

Obviously I wasn’t interested in rubberstamping gender roles today. I didn’t preach on what women have to be like or should be ‘allowed’ to be like. I just told stories. Stories of women, of mothers, who worked to make this world a better place. Stories that highlighted that often it is the women who are the only ones who can be heard and make a difference in certain situations.

We set the stage with the story of Naboth’s vineyard from 1 Kings 21. As story of taking a stand against injustice.

We then noticed the striking parallels of that Biblical account with the modern day struggle of the women of the Niger Delta in their struggle against Chevron/Texaco.

But why stories of justice on Mother’s Day? For that we told the story of the origins of Mother’s Day in America which are rooted in mothers coming together to work for peace, justice, and equality. Women who see their identity as women and mothers (as human beings) as being more important than battle lines and nationality. As Julia Ward Howe wrote as she called for the first Mother’s Day for Peace –

Mother’s Day Proclamation – 1870
by Julia Ward Howe

Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God –
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

To explore those themes we told a couple more stories of women who changed their world. First we looked at the Mothers of the Disappeared who stood up to the evil military regime in Argentina. Then we turned to the Congo and watched a short film about women who are making better lives for their families through literacy and community banking programs like WORTH (a global women’s empowerment program).

I like telling stories. I like claiming the strength of these women to inspire.

Happy Mother’s Day

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[Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007] – Easter Morning

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John 20
The Empty Tomb
1Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

3So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

I am not one to get up early. If I had my way I would sleep late everyday. I like sleep. I try to sleep as much as I can. But then there are those nights when the world just seems so wrong, so off, so empty that sleep seems far away. How can one sleep when everything has gone wrong? When all of one’s hopes, dreams, and plans have come to an abrupt end? Why sleep when you have to wake up to that slow sad realization that everything has changed – your life has fallen apart?

It was nights like those that came to mind as I read the Resurrection passage here. Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.. I picture her unable to sleep since the crucifixion – unwilling to accept the horror and get on with life by succumbing to such an everyday habit of life as sleep. So while it is still dark she goes to the tomb.

The experience of the past few days cannot be processed. How could she ever come to terms with what happened? He had promised a new Kingdom and a new and more glorious way of life. He had challenged what was wrong with the world and offered hope to the suffering. He had encouraged her as a woman to follow him. How could he let this happen? How could it all just be over?

I picture Mary going to the tomb because there was no where else she felt she could possibly be. Anointing spices were a good reason, but like so many others across time, she had to return to that which she had lost. The life, the promises, the man. Life cannot go forward, she can’t get back what had been lost. The grieving process has hardly begun and so all she can think to do is go to the tomb. Be as close as she can to that which was lost.

To find that the stone had been moved.

Anger, rage, confusion, fear. How does one handle the torrent of emotions? How does one respond to this new affront? At this point how can there be any hope of a happy ending?

Easter for us is a time of joy. It is the symbol of hope and of life. The first day of the week is a time of celebration, time to express our joy. But I wonder what extremities of emotion those who discovered the empty tomb experienced before the truth was fully revealed.

I pray for a blessed Easter for all who read this. And I pray that the joy and celebration will not just be a veneer on the realities of life. I pray that the trappings and the traditions will not just be perfunctory elements this year, but instead be personal and transformative. May the message of Jesus and the hope of the Resurrection permeate your life and meet you in the midst of whatever you are dealing with. May Christ be celebrated for conquering death, setting captives free, and healing the brokenhearted.

He is Risen.

May we be able to answer with all that we are – He is Risen Indeed!

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[Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007] – Good Friday

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In reflecting on Good Friday, I was reminded of W.H Auden’s poem “Horae Canonica” which is a procession through the divine hours on Good Friday (in its own way). This section stood out to me –

From W.H. Auden’s Horae Canonica –

What we know to be not possible,
Though time after time foretold
By wild hermits, by shaman and sybil
Gibbering in their trances,
Or revealed to a child in some chance rhyme
Like will and kill, comes to pass
Before we realize it: we are surprised
At the ease and speed of our deed
And uneasy: It is barely three,
Mid-afternoon, yet the blood
Of our sacrifice is already
Dry on the grass; we are not prepared
For silence so sudden and so soon;
The day is too hot, too bright, too still,
Too ever, the dead remains too nothing.
What shall we do till nightfall?

The wind has dropped and we have lost our public.
The faceless many who always
Collect when any world is to be wrecked,
Blown up, burnt down, cracked open,
Felled, sawn in two, hacked through, torn apart,
Have all melted away: not one
Of these who in the shade of walls and trees
Lie sprawled now, calmly sleeping,
Harmless as sheep, can remember why
He shouted or what about
So loudly in the sunshine this morning;
All if challenged would reply
-‘It was a monster with one red eye,
A crowd that saw him die, not I.-
The hangman has gone to wash, the soldiers to eat;
We are left alone with our feat.

The Madonna with the green woodpecker,
The Madonna of the fig-tree,
The Madonna beside the yellow dam,
Turn their kind faces from us
And our projects under construction,
Look only in one direction,
Fix their gaze on our completed work:
Pile-driver, concrete-mixer,
Crane and pick-axe wait to be used again,
But how can we repeat this?
Outliving our act, we stand where we are,
As disregarded as some
Discarded artifact of our own,
Like torn gloves, rusted kettles,
Abandoned branch-lines, worn lop-sided
Grindstones buried in nettles.

This mutilated flesh, our victim,
Explains too nakedly, too well,
The spell of the asparagus garden,
The aim of our chalk-pit game; stamps,
Birds’ eggs are not the same, behind the wonder
Of tow-paths and sunken lanes,
Behind the rapture on the spiral stair,
We shall always now be aware
Of the deed into which they lead, under
The mock chase and mock capture,
The racing and tussling and splashing,
The panting and the laughter,
Be listening for the cry and stillness
To follow after: wherever
The sun shines, brooks run, books are written,
There will also be this death.

Today we celebrate the goodness of the day God died. For Christians this day defines who God is, for others this day proves that our religion is untrue because gods don’t die. What strikes me today is the ordinariness of this day. I had my morning coffee, I will fix dinner tonight, I will take my daughter to playgroup. Perhaps Good Friday doesn’t disrupt my life enough. Our church is holding services/events on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday this year. So Good Friday must be remembered in the ordinariness of everyday life.

But isn’t that as it should be? That the death of Christ should influence and change everything? That enacting the ritual of the everyday should be imbued with the significance of Christ? That there is something different about changing the diapers, cutting the grass, or doing the dishes because of this death?

But that change occurs in two ways. At first those habits seem so ordinary as to be meaningless. In the shadow of cosmic redemption dramas, our daily actions seem so pointless and boring. Yet at the same time in light of the call that cosmic drama gave to each of us, those actions now take on new meaning. They become part of the drama, a way of identifying with the story. Acts of remembrance and service and hope.

So I will walk through my everyday rituals today in hope. In knowing that this day is good and that this death has changed the ordinary forever.

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[Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007] – Carry the Cross

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“You broke the bonds
And you loosened the chains
Carried the cross
Of all my shame
all my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”

– U2, I Still Haven’t found What I’m Looking For

So I was listening to my U218 CD in the car and these lines from the most preached on U2 song ever caught my attention. I had just been looking at the images from the life of Christ visual we are using in our Maundy Thursday service and recalled this image from Nicaragua. So often we get so caught up in the personal affront to Jesus – the beatings, the torture, and the via crucis – and the personal freedom it grants us without placing it in context.

Jesus did come to loose the chains of injustice. He came to set the captives free. His people were living under oppression. A military government controlled them and occupied their land. Jesus came to offer the way of peace and love even amidst that lack of freedom. A revolution more radical than any violent uprising, more subversive than any secret army.

I like the reminder the painting gives of how oppressive military regimes still exist in our world today – and Jesus carries the cross for them too. He came to set captives free and loose the chains of injustice for Israel and for the nations. He suffered for their freedom. He suffered so that they may have hope.

I believe that. I believe the way of Christ is possible. I believe love and peace and justice can be lived out. But I still haven’t found it. I haven’t seen “justice become a light to the nations.” I haven’t found what Christ came to establish.

Which is why I work for it. Which is why the via crucis is not just a personal affront or a personal hope, but an invitation into an entirely new way of being. A life where walking with Christ and carrying the cross with him involves caring for the things he cared about. Working for the same goals. Seeking justice. Rescuing the oppressed. Living the life of love and peace.

[Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007]

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Fourth Sunday of Advent – Reflections

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”And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. – Luke 2:8-12

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” – Luke 4:14-21

Good tidings of great joy. Born this day. Today this scripture is fulfilled.

As we light the Advent candle today we celebrate joy. Joy in the promises of a Messiah, joy in the waiting and longing, joy in the hope, and peace, and love. Good tiding of great joy. Joy is our response to Advent. To the hope that a better world is possible. To the promise of peace on earth. To the love we give and receive.

And this joy is a joy we can celebrate now. Christ is born. The promises of scripture have been fulfilled. The Kingdom is here and now. There is hope for the poor, there is freedom for the oppressed, there is sight for the blind. We can take joy that Christ has come and is at work in the world.

The past week I came upon a blog where the author was demanding that “Joy to the World” not be sung as Christmas. His reasoning was that it is not a song about Christ’s first advent (his birth), but a song about the second coming of Christ. He believes that none of the things celebrated in the song have happened or can happen until Christ returns, so there is no reason to ever sing the words “joy to the world.”

But we have the words of the Angels and Christ himself that we can have joy today. Christ has come – love dwelled among us, hope was born in a manger. And we who choose to follow in the way of Christ can proclaim that joy and work for that joy. We are called to share that joy. To be the ones giving hope. The ones bringing freedom from oppression. The ones making sure the words “joy to the world” are a reality. The ones making sure sins and sorrows do not grow. The ones working the wonders of his love.

So this Advent, this Christmas – let us not just “repeat the sounding joy,” but let us be the harbingers of that Joy.

For Joy to the world the Lord is come.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

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The Light Returns

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“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Today we celebrate the return of the light. The longest night is passed and the light returns to our land. I never paid much attention to the Solstice until I moved up north. But the return of the light, so rich in symbolic and religious meaning, is a symbol and reality of hope. Even amidst the cold and the darkness the despair cannot win. The light shines forth, better days are ahead, life and light dwell upon the earth. Blessings and Joie this Solstice.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”

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Third Sunday of Advent – Reflections

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“Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where’s the Tylenol?” – Clark Griswold, Christmas Vacation

Earlier this month in South Carolina a mother had her 12 year old son arrested for finding and playing with a Christmas present early. The trappings and habits of Christmas were apparently more important that this child’s criminal record for life.

In Chappaqua, New York, a merchant put up blue-and white snowflake flags with the word “Welcome” printed on them. Apparently some in the town felt the flags were too reminiscent of traditional Hanukkah colors, were shaped like dreidels, and had Hebrew-style lettering, so they complained–vocally–to the woman who had purchased them. So much for her attempt to spiff up the shopping street.

A new poll out by Zogby International reported recently that 32 percent of Americans say they are offended when a store clerk wishes them “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” Because being offended really helps spread the love and joy of Christmas.

This is the world we are celebrating Christmas in this year. A world where our personal rights and preferences are more important than the command to love our neighbor. A world where creating the perfect Martha Stewart Christmas is more important than spending time with our families. A world where trivia about Christmas becomes more important than the implications of incarnation.

This week, the third Sunday of Advent, we light the candle representing love (and yes, I know, in some traditions this week’s theme is joy, but traditions change – do you see anyone focusing on the traditional themes of death, judgment, heaven, and hell during advent?). This advent season we have focused on hope and peace – that we can have hope in God’s kingdom working in this world and that we can work for peace. But honestly, it is almost easier to have hope and be a peacemaker in the big things. We can care about stopping AIDS and violence, but are we really ready to love?

Are we ready to love those who are hurting? Those who are sick? Those who come from a different culture than us? Are we ready to love the person who just took our parking space at the mall? Our child who just broke another Christmas ornament? The secularist who is trying to get the Christmas Carols out of the public schools? The gay couple down the street? The illegal worker who picked the produce in our fridge? The boss who paid that worker far less than minimum wage to pick that produce? Are we ready to love not just children dying of AIDS in Africa, but the prostitute dying of AIDS in our community? Are we ready to love not just in a perfunctory Christiany “of course I love them” sort of way, but a way that actually lets them see that God loves them too?

Are we ready to be Christ’s hands and feet? Are we ready to really be the body of Christ? Are we ready to be the incarnation?

Christmas is the celebration of the incarnation. The indwelling of love on earth. Our hope in a better world and our longing for peace find their answer in this embodiment of love. “For God so loved the world that he sent his only son.” As the carol penned by Christina Rossetti proclaims –

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.

And as the church, as the body of Christ, we now are the manifestation of that love. Love is our token – love for God and love for man. We talk about how we are blessed to be a blessing – and we are called to be that blessing (to love others) not just in Haiti, or Africa, or at the food pantry – but in our day to day lives. In our families, in our communities, and in our service encounters. It’s a lot easier to be selfish and petty and talk about love abstractly (like I’m doing now), but we are called to be living, breathing incarnations of love – even at Christmastime. Are we ready (and willing) to do that?

I want to close with a reading of a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13 written especially for Christmas.

The Advent of Love

Set your feet on higher ground this year and I will show you the way to Bethlehem.

If I speak with the earthy language of Luke and also sing with the heavenly hosts, but share the Christmas story again without making it a love story, it becomes a noisy song and a tinseled symbol.

And if I have powers of imagination and pretend to understand the mystery of incarnation and know my theology cold; and if I have faith that’s been to the mountain, but let that theology remain outside the stable; and if I take a wiseman’s journey without love, I stay in the darkness.

If I offer rare and precious gifts in this season, and if I expend all my energy in pageants and parties, but make these offerings in order that others may love me, I gain nothing of the spirit of Christmas.

Love in this season is patient with those who think Christmas will never get here, and love keeps words kind in spite of the frantic pace which overtakes us. Love in our celebration rules out gift exchanges that are self-serving; questions valuing persons by the price of their gifts; avoids rudeness in the shopping place.

Love in December days is not irritated by the trite and the trivial nor resentful of demands others make of us. It does not dwell on the wrongs in the world, but finds joy in the truth of God’s gift.

Love in Advent bears the burden of history unfolding; believes in the reality of the Word made flesh; hopes for good will and enduring peace among all. …

From Love’s Letters: A Poetic Book of Confessions by George Gunn
(Library Lane Press / Copyright 2001)

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