GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST AND PEACE ON EARTH

Along with the majority of Christians I believe that God became human to save us.  God saved us by becoming like us — the all-powerful Word of God, the Word that created the universe and us within it, took on human nature so that we humans might participate in God’s nature (2 Peter 1:4). Or to quote one of the theologians of the Early Church, “God became man so that man might become god.”

In other words, our salvation isn’t simply found in the several hours of Jesus dying on the cross. Rather, our salvation is found in the entire event of the Incarnation — from the angel Gabriel’s annunciation to the young Mary, through Jesus’ entire life, his crucifixion, resurrection, and even beyond.

In all of these events, we discover the amazing reality of “God with us” (Immanuel).  That is our salvation.  Our salvation is that we have the chance to be communion with God, who has taken on our nature and dwells with us. We participate in God and God in us. And in that sharing of lives, we are being transformed into the likeness of Christ, who is not only the very image of God, but also the very image of humanity. Christ embodies the kind of humanity into which we are being saved. Through Jesus, God is recreating and renewing his image within us, within humanity.

While that is all certainly true, those are rather big words and concepts. Incarnation. Salvation. Redemption.  Renewal. They are just as big as the words for the 4 candles of Advent – Peace, Hope, Joy, and Love.

Let’s take all of this down a few notches.  Would you agree with me that our world is a mess. The world that we created and which fruits we reap and which pleasures we enjoy?  So we are not just passive bystanders of a mess that others create, but we are participants and perpetrators of the mess.  It won’t help to do what we so often do when something went wrong – point the finger onto someone else.  It wasn’t me. She made me do it. That’s what Adam did in the Garden of Eden.  That’s what we so when things go wrong.

In reality, though. We are not innocent.  We cheat, we lie, we take advantage of others. We use others to our own benefit. We put on a false façade. A nice appearance. Behind that façade, though, we often are not so nice.

Christmas is a reminder that we are created for something better. We are created in God’s image and God wants us to act in ways that honor the divine origin within each other. 

Those are really big words again.  Big words and big steps.  Let’s break this down into some really small baby steps.

Let’s take for example all the things that make up Christmas for us. 

For our purposes here, let’s just cut this list down to a few essentials.  While that’s a lot less, it certainly is still a lot.

Do you think that these capture the essence of Jesus’ life?  Hmm.  Now, what if we were to change the items a bit.

I do think that if we begin with baby steps, if we begin with admitting the mess in our own lives and ask for forgiveness, God’s forgiveness, and if we focus our actions just a bit more onto the needs of others rather than our own needs, we WILL capture more of the meaning of Christ’s birth, than if we were to stick to our original Christmas to-do-list.

I encourage each and every one of you to pick a few items from this list and begin God’s love, God’s generosity, God’s compassion, and God’s mercy in the here and now.  This Christmas and throughout the year.

And may the peace that is beyond all our understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

ACCOMPANING THE PEOPLE OF EL SALVADOR

Over the last five decades, the imagery used to describe missionaries has profoundly changed. Whereas missionaries used to be commissioned to “take” the gospel to every corner, missionaries today are called to discover God’s presence and revelation where it is already present in other regions and cultures of the world and to help nurture, grow, and refine those sprouts.  In other words, borrowing images from Jesus’ parables, missionaries have changed from pearl merchants into treasure hunters.

Memorial Wall with 40,000 Names and the Images of the 4 Church Women 

This change of understanding guided the journey to El Salvador that I recently undertook, just after Thanksgiving.  I had signed up to join a delegation jointly sponsored by SHARE Foundation (www.share-elsalvador.org) and by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (www.lcwr.org), that is, by the association of leaders of 80 percent of U.S. Roman Catholic nuns.

Tomb of Bp. Oscar Romero at the Cathedral in San Sanvador

Based at a simple hotel in the capital, San Salvador, for one week I crisscrossed the country in the company of some 115 others (about 100 of them nuns), traveling to many rural and urban places in three beat-up yellow U.S. school buses. The majority of our meals included rice, beans, plantains, pupusas, and many delicious fresh fruit, such as papayas, pineapple, and bananas.

Garden at teh University of Central America (UCA) with Images of the Six Slain Jesuits and 2 House Keepers

The occasion and timing of the delegation was not a happy one. It marked the 35^th anniversary of the brutal killing of four Catholic churchwomen (three sisters, one young lay missionary).  On December 2, 1980, these four “Gringa” women paid the ultimate price in service to God and their Salvadoran brothers and sisters when they joined the ranks of the about 80,000 people murdered or “disappeared” during the civil war that lasted from 1980-1992. Two of the women were buried in El Salvador, 2 were flown home to be buried in the US.

In San Pedro Nonualco, Gathering around the Shrine Built in Memory of the 4 Church Women

I learned on this delegation a multitude of facts that I had not known previously and heard many first-hand stories about massacres, repatriations, and murdered or missing family members – too many stories to tell in this format.  What stayed with me most clearly, though, was that those commissioned to positions of Christian leadership (as lay leaders, catechists, nuns, priests, or bishops) clearly saw the face of Christ present among the poor, beaten down, abused men, women, and children whom they served. 

Tombs of Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke & Ita Ford, Cemetery in Chalatenango

The sisters did not so much go to Central America to take the Gospel of Christ to the poor peasants and refugees with whom they worked.  Rather, in Central America they encountered Christ where he was already present: in the bereaved, hunted, anguished faces of widows and orphans holding up photos of their missing husbands and fathers, in the hungry refugees in need of food and shelter, and in the brutalized bodies thrown out of jeeps and left by the roadside.  They did not take Christ to them.  Christ was already there.  Christ was present and beckoned the “haves” to join him among the “have-nots.”

Walking toward Mass in a Town in Chalatenango District

Having entered into relationships with human beings suffering unimaginable violence (unimaginable for the vast majority of U.S. citizens), they began to look at the world from below, from the vantage point of the poor. And there, among that suffering people, they were finding Jesus — accompanying the victims, the massacred, the tortured, the families who had found the bodies of their loved ones lying along roadsides. Like the Good Samaritan, they could not just walk by; they stopped to care for the wounded and to see to their healing. But they also knew the suffering would not end unless the root causes were addressed — the injustice and repression of the Salvadoran military regime and its wealthy sponsors.

"...so that the blood of all martyrs may become the seed of liberation" (Mons. Oscar Romero)

To me, the witness of these four women is a testimony to the power of God to transform madness into hope. Most of all, though, it is a witness to the God who joined humanity in their lives by coming to them as a powerless child in a smelly stable.

Cross Designed from the Faces of Salvadoran Martyrs

I wish and pray that we at Bethel would be united in discovering Christ where he is already at work in the world.  Christmas was not only an event that happened 2,000 years ago.  Christmas, the incarnation of God in humankind, still happens in the here and now. More often than not, it happens among those who are as poor and powerless as Mary and Joseph were. May we have eyes to see God’s face, ears to hear God’s word, and hands ready to serve wherever God may lead us!

Mos. Oscar Arnulfo Romero and other Salvadoran Saints

Mural at the Airport in San Salvador & the Church where Mons Romero was Assassinated

PRAYING IN THE WAKE OF THE VIOLENCE IN PARIS

Here’s a prayer of petition written in the wake of the violence in France last weekend.  It was written by Erin Counihan, and was inspired by Psalm 143.

Prayer of Petition

(inspired by Psalm 143)

Hear our prayer, O Lord,

For evil is all around us, pursuing us,
crushing us low, weighing us down,
and we sit in the cloud of its heaviness and death.
Again and again, day after day,

bombing after bombing,

shooting after shooting.
Our spirits grow weak.
Our hearts are breaking.

Oh, but Lord, even in our weakness,
even in our brokenness,
even in our grief,
we remember your hope.
We remember your stories of transformation and faithfulness.
We remember you, our steady and constant love.
And so we reach out to you.
We unload our souls before you.
We empty all our emotions at your feet.

Hear our prayers, O Lord.
Heal our hearts, O Lord.
Hold our burdens, O Lord.

Show us the way we should go.
Teach us how to follow you in this time.
Guide us in faithful witness.
Inspire us to share your radical love.
Even when it is hard.
Even when it feels hopeless.
Let your good spirit lead us.

For we are your people.
We cling to you.
Hear our prayers, O Lord.

~ Adapted from Psalm 143 by Erin Counihan

Psalm 143

Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies

A Psalm of David (translation: NRSV)

¹ Hear my prayer, O Lord;
    give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness;
    answer me in your righteousness.
² Do not enter into judgment with your servant,
    for no one living is righteous before you.

³ For the enemy has pursued me,
    crushing my life to the ground,
    making me sit in darkness like those long dead.
⁴ Therefore my spirit faints within me;
    my heart within me is appalled.

⁵ I remember the days of old,
    I think about all your deeds,
    I meditate on the works of your hands.
⁶ I stretch out my hands to you;
    my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.Selah

⁷ Answer me quickly, O Lord;
    my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me,
    or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.
⁸ Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning,
    for in you I put my trust.
Teach me the way I should go,
    for to you I lift up my soul.

⁹ Save me, O Lord, from my enemies;
    I have fled to you for refuge.^[a]
10 Teach me to do your will,
    for you are my God.
Let your good spirit lead me
    on a level path.

¹¹ For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life.
    In your righteousness bring me out of trouble.
¹² In your steadfast love cut off my enemies,
    and destroy all my adversaries,
    for I am your servant.

ON SAINTS & PROPHETS

Prophet Elijah Praying on Mt. Carmel in Front of his Altar

Last Sunday, on All Saints Day, Pr. Ben reminded us that all of us who are gathered in churches everywhere are saints … and sinners.  All? Everyone? Yes.  “Saint” is the St. Paul’s term for the followers of Christ, living and dead alike. 

Thus it made total sense for us to celebrate All Saints Day in a less somber manner.  Contrary to other years, we did not read the names of Bethel members who had passed away over the previous 12 months (as Vera Finstad was the only one who had passed on), but instead remembered all those Christians who were died because of their faith, their race, gender, malnutrition, preventable illnesses, or other reasons.  If you missed the video we watched in our worship services, you can still do so on here. 

Additionally, we had eight guests who delighted us with their music and dancing – the New Life Band from Arusha, Tanzania. It was wonderful to be reunited with four old acquaintances and make four new friends.  If you missed the worship services and the New Life Band concert in the afternoon, you can watch a short video of their performance here.

This Sunday, we won’t here about saints, but listen to a well-known Biblical prophet – Elijah.  He is known for bein on the run from the wrath of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, for miracles that he performed, for being on Mount Horeb and listening to God’s “still small voice,” for being lifted into heaven by way of a fiery chariot, and for engaging in a prayer contest with a bunch of pagan priests (1 Kings 18).  In short, Elijah lived a rather colorful, rich life.

After deconstructing, if you will, the term “saint”, it is helpful to also note the way the Bible uses the term “prophet.”  As we already saw, the Bible uses the term “saint” in a very different manner than our culture uses it. Saints are not those people who are particularly holy or virtuous, but all who put their trust in Jesus Christ.

Similarly, prophets are not those who can predict the future through some secret gift or a crystal ball.  Rather, prophets are those followers of God who know God’s law and who can read the present time in light of God’s law. Prophets are those individuals who can acutely see how their contemporaries stray from God’s will. Prophets are those individuals who acutely understand and publicly point out the mistreatment of the most vulnerable in society (widows, orphans, immigrants) and the way pagan worship has penetrated the worship of the ancient people of Israel.

So, if men like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and Elijah were prophets in this sense, are we not called to a similar prophetic ministry in our current time?