Christmas Is Not What We Think

Listen to the hymn Mary proclaimed when her world was turned upside down; listen for the Word in the words when she was told, by an angel, she would bear a child out of wedlock:

Μεγαλύνει ἡ ψυχή μου τὸν Κύριον
My soul doth magnify the Lord,

καὶ ἠγαλλίασεν τὸ πνεῦμά μου ἐπὶ τῷ Θεῷ τῷ σωτῆρί μου
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.

He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

Did you listen? Did you hear those subversive words in there? Do you realize how much challenge is in those words to our well ordered world, and how it would change business as usual? Why, they would turn it upside down. Upside down! Oh sure, we celebrate the warm and fuzzy feelings we get at Christmas, but listen to Mary‘s hymn, and then think about how Jesus was received by the world once he came into his maturity. This same baby, this same love incarnate, this same one who makes us feel all warm and good inside is the One who got nailed to a tree because his teaching was turning everything upside down. In fact, this is the very charge that society brought against the early church because it was trying concretely to live the teachings of Jesus. In the book of Acts, as they were dragging Jason off to prison his accusers
said, and I quote, "These people have been turning the world upside down." What kind of church is THAT, I ask you? Scripture is filled with some mighty upside down thinking.

One of the remarkable messages of incarnational theology is the startling reminder that we are created in the image of God, and if that doesn‘t turn our image of ourselves, and each other, upside down, I don‘t know what will. You, and the person you like least in this world, are both created in the image and likeness of God. And God is love. We are created in the image of love: that is our deepest humanity, our deepest identity, and THAT is why Christmas turns us upside down because it reminds us that that is who we are expected be, how we are supposed to behave.

Incarnational theology changes us, everyone, it changes us. It scatters our pride in the imaginations of our hearts and it exalts our humility. Christmas fills our hungry souls with good things as it starves those areas that we mistakenly think should be right side up. We come to the manger expecting to find what we think we are going to find, what we think we always find, only to discover that this cute little baby can, and does, turn our well ordered world upside down.

Standing in the Middle

There is an old Hassidic tale of a student who asks the rabbi, "Teacher, why does the Torah say, 'place these words upon your hearts'? Why does it not tell us to place these words in our hearts?" And the rabbi responds, "It is because, as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in."

Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan said much the same thing: "God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open."

The way of Christ—the way of keeping the heart open—is, in its own way, quite simple. But never, ever, ever make the mistake of thinking it is easy. As G.K. Chesterton once said, "Christianity has not been tried and found lacking. It has been found difficult and left untried." And it is difficult because it demands that our hearts be willing to be broken and yet to stay open as Mary's, to be wounded and yet forgive as the prodigal father, to be fearful and yet face Pharaoh with the courage of Moses, to give all we have yet live in abundance as the impoverished widow, to fail miserably and yet try again as Peter, to proclaim life and yet die as Jesus, to walk the wrong path, and yet turn around as Paul. It is to love in and into the cruciform way of life, and to resolve that we will be part of the world's needed healing and not part of its continued wounding. It is to stand in the gap between a world that glorifies power and violence and in response to proclaim a message that is perceived as weakness and to walk a Way that is understood to be unrealistic. Christianity has not been tried and found lacking. It has been found difficult and left untried.

If we are to be a church where no one will look at us and see the impression of what has hurt us but rather the image of the one who called us, then we must be willing to stand in the gap: to stand in the gap between the world's violent reaction to its pain and God's loving response to that same pain. We must be willing to stand in the gap between fundamentalist beliefs that violently condemn others as wrong and a faith of light and love that teaches that the Way of Christ is more about behavior and less about creeds. We must be willing to stand in the gap between a world that glorifies the tomb of shock and awe and the God that offers the womb of grace and awe. We must be willing to stand in the gap between our own fear-based reactions and our faith-based responses, and have the courage to be, and to choose, and to walk with Christ and all faithful pilgrims who choose life over death, love over fear, generosity over scarcity. The Christian Church must ever be willing to stand in the gap between the ways and values of the world, and the Way and Value of Life.

May it be ever so.

The Mountain Of God II

In my last post I spoke of the Mountain of God, and of humanity's attempt to scale that peak to discover union with the Holy. I would like to expand upon that a bit.

In this admittedly limited metaphor, the base of this mountain is so vast that it spans a huge portion of the globe. That being the case part of its base is found in a jungle, and another part in a desert. Part of its base is found in an archipelago and part of it in a large city. Obviously, to begin to climb the mountain from those different places takes radically different skill sets. A person skilled in the jungle would perish in the desert and vice versa. Likewise the person from an archipelago in a bustling city. The path up the mountain looks different in each place. In fact, one way up might not even look like a path to someone from a different part of the globe.

This is an apt metaphor for religion. Because of historical circumstance and cultural differences the paths up the Mountain of the Lord look very different from each other at the base. And because they look so different people get to thinking that THEIR path is the only path and the others lead nowhere. People will fight, even kill, to prove themselves right.

It is only those who climb high enough up the mountain and thus who leave their ecosystems of origin behind who begin to catch a glimpse of other paths making it up the mountain. And it is only then that we realize that we have been climbing the same mountain all along.

Part of the solution to this religious internecine warfare is to help people climb: climb away from the security of the base of the mountain; climb to where the air is thinner and the view more expansive; climb to an understanding of religion that recognizes that we need paths up the mountain, and that there are other paths more suited to other people and their context.

So we climb, looking out for others coming from different directions and encouraging them on the way.

This Advent - The End of the World?

Some Thoughts about Advent from the Rev. Andrea LaSonde Anastos

The new liturgical year began November 29, with the First Sunday of Advent...the season of the church year that many worshipers would vote “Least Likely to Be Missed.” There’s a lot of resentment out there about Advent and about the purpose of Advent which, in case you have forgotten, is about attentive waiting.

Attentive waiting is in short supply in the world today, even in churches. We live in a culture that wants instant gratification and the instant fix. Our culture pressures us to front-load Advent with all the Christmas traditions so that we can hurry and get our Christmas trees down December 26 in preparation for Easter candy hitting the stores.

Would the world as we know it come to an end if we were to celebrate Christmas during the 12 days of Christmas, and Advent during Advent? The short answer is probably, Yes.

Yes, and that fear is what drives many of us to fight so fiercely to avoid Advent with its attentive waiting for something so much bigger than “the birthday of Jesus.” Advent is not about a baby in a manger; it is about all that scandalous, subversive stuff that Jesus taught like caring for the least and forgiving our enemies, like being servants rather than power-brokers, like creating that realm of justice and peace we are always talking about. Creating it right here, right now so that Christ can come again to administer God’s commonwealth.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the world as we know it were to end this year? Maybe this Advent.

A Call To Engage the Bible

When I'm not hanging out with the youth at First Plymouth, I moonlight as a PhD student in Biblical Interpretation at Iliff School of Theology and the University of Denver. As part of that life (but connected with church life), I spent the weekend at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in New Orleans, LA (also the site of our last two summers' high school mission trips). It was a really fantastic experience; I heard lots of great papers, saw from friends, and got starstruck by all the (relatively) famous bible scholars I ran into in the hallway.

One of the most provocative sessions was put on by HarperOne publishing. It featured several of their authors (including Iliff's own Pam Eisenbaum), talking about the publishing world and their differing takes on Paul. Bart Ehrman, a very widely published and well-respected author, sent a shot across the bow of ministers and churches like First Plymouth.

Ehrman's basic question was this: why do my books sell so well? (They sell really well). It's a pretty good question. Why do books about the bible, which is so little-read in this country, sell so well? Why are people so eager to buy a book explaining the scholarship (or lack thereof) behind The DaVinci Code, or a book about the formation of the canon? Why is there such hunger for knowledge about the bible and Christianity?

Ehrman says it's our fault, and I think he's right. He says that churches (and the ministers who are hired to run them) have abdicated their responsibility to teach the bible, and it's difficult to argue with that. When someone finally picks up the bible and reads it (or picks up one of Ehrman's books and reads about it), her first reaction is often this: "why didn't my minister tell me about this? Why didn't I ever hear about this in church?"

Those are great questions. We, as churches and ministers, often don't talk about the difficult parts of the bible: how it sometimes contradicts itself, how it seems to condone sexism and slavery, how it portrays God in unsavory ways, and how at times it seems downright unholy. We skip the parts where Jesus criticizes wealth in the strongest terms (or explain it away as hyperbole), ignore Revelation and Leviticus altogether, and usually stick to the feel-good parts of the bible that don't really challenge us.

And that's why Erhman's books sell. He's giving it to them straight. We're shying away from our own sacred scriptures.

How can we right this wrong? How can we reclaim our own holy texts, and how can we make them relevant to this generation? It won't be by ignoring them, sugarcoating them, or cherrypicking only those parts of the bible that make us feel good. Churches like First Plymouth, which stand for progressive theological principles, should be grounding our faith in a deep engagement with the bible.

The bible has informed and inspired Christians for nearly 2,000 years. It can do the same for us. Let's get started. Who's with me?

(Top image: part of the text of John's gospel from the Codex Sinaiticus, probably the oldest extant copy of the New Testament).

The God Who Sings

from Jenny Morgan, Interim Associate Minister

We celebrate Mom’s 70^th birthday this week. I live almost 2,000 miles away from my family, so finding ways to celebrate important birthdays is an art form for which I’ve had lots of practice. Phone calls, flowers, cards, occasional surprise visits, and now a First Plymouth Congregational Church blog post. (Mom doesn’t quite yet understand what a blog is, so I’ll send her a copy via snail mail.)

Last week I asked, “Mom, how will you celebrate 70?” Knowing exactly how my family (1 incredible sister, 2 amazing brothers, 3 out-of-this-world, remarkable sisters-in-law,

1 extraordinary nephew, and 1 beautiful and talented niece) planned to honor her, I was surprised by Mom’s response. “Oh, maybe God will sing happy birthday to me! I don’t like making a big deal about my birthdays…too much fuss.”

I tried to hold my cynicism at bay, but I’m certain it leaked out as I rolled my eyes on the other end of the phone. God singing? Come on, Mom!

But then Zephaniah 3:17 from the Bible popped into my brain and the cynic in me drifted away. “The Lord your God is in your midst, the Mighty One who saves; he will rejoice over you with gladness, take great delight in you, and renew you with his love; he will exalt over you with loud singing!”

Maybe she’s right. God does sing over us. And the family is also celebrating her life tonight. They are taking her out for a very special dinner, delighting in her (with God and with each other), renewing her with their love, and singing a loud, mostly out of tune song in her honor.

May we all be aware of God’s voice singing over us.

And by the way…Happy Birthday, Lucy Morgan, from your oldest kid! God is indeed singing over you, taking great joy in you, and loving you fully! Let’s make a great big fuss about that.

Hearing the Voice even now,
Jenny

The Mountain of God

Religion is generally an idolatrous affair. Seriously. I know this sounds odd coming from a minister--someone ordained to uphold religious truth--but perhaps I am just a freak.

I have traveled a good bit and have met people of many faiths. I cannot say I have ever met a person of no faith, just of no religion. I have never met a person who did not believe in anything: every sane person I have met has had a sense of right and wrong, justice and injustice, etc. Faith is there; it is often not conceived or articulated using an established religion.

Religion is the attempt to understand the thin places. It is the attempt to articulate the experience of something "Other." Or someone Other. That's when the trouble starts. We take these experiences of the numinous and force them into concepts that we can understand, concepts that can only be as big as our mind has developed. Then we call that concept "God." But it is not God. It is only our understanding of our experience of God. Yet once we name our understanding as God, we then enthrone our understanding and worship that. Religion is an idolatrous affair.

Ultimately, for religion to serve us, it is helpful to remember that it is a path up the mountain of God. It is not the mountain. It is not God. It is a path. Yes, I do believe there are many paths, and I will address that in a later post.

I follow the Christ path, the Jesus Way. In him I discover life and balance. With him I understand better how to love and forgive (and be forgiven). Beside him I am called to the Way of the Servant: loving as he loved, living as he lived.

It is a hard path. Jesus never promised it would be easy. Quite the opposite, in fact. But I only find it a treacherous path when my religion slips into doctrine and dogma, seducing me into ortho-credo as opposed to orthopraxis and ortho-agape.

Keep me humble, God, and help me to worship you and not my idea of you. So be it.

Give a Gift that Gives Twice - At Least!

It’s called an Alternative Gift Market, and it’s going on at First Plymouth this Saturday and Sunday. It’s your opportunity to give something a little different this holiday season – something will give at least twice. Come sample a wide array of fair trade and earth-friendly gifts and support artists and artisans around the world at this special market. (And then head across the street and check out the World Gift Market at First Universalist Church – even more opportunities for great earth-friendly holiday shopping!)

This is a chance to simplify your holiday gift-giving and help others at the same time, to support those with needs greater than our own by purchasing and sharing their talents with others. Unique, socially conscious selections make your holiday shopping a pleasant and satisfying experience.

Among your shopping and gift-giving opportunities at the Alternative Gift Market: Sabeel, Earthlinks, Yobel Market, the Heifer Project, Habitat for Humanity and Women Build/Habitat, Outreach Uganda, Sanyork Fair Trade, Jasmine Company, A Mark on the World, the Women’s Bean Project, the Alzheimer’s Association, the Support Africa Foundation, People of Hope/Project Salvador, and Project Rwanda.

There is also a fantastic silent auction benefitting two community programs. The English Language Acquisition (ELA) project, co-sponsored by First Plymouth and Temple Sinai, teaches English to about 100 recent immigrants at any given time, allowing them to find work and live with dignity in a new culture. Volunteers provide the teaching, but the workbooks cost $30 per student per year. The Inner City Health Center provides medical and dental care for a nearly 7,000 uninsured Denver residents. Over eighty health care professionals donate their time, but funds are needed for medical supplies.

AND a bake sale to benefit First Plymouth youth programs, lots of great Christmas music, community, fellowship, and fun. All at 3501 South Colorado Boulevard on the corner of Hampden Avenue from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday and 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Sunday. (Come worship with us Sunday morning, too, at 9:00 a.m. or 11:11 a.m. – we’d love to see you there as well!)

Need more information or directions? Call the church office at 303-762-0616.

Fort Hood and Interfaith Initiative

from Senior Minister George Anastos

Church member Anne Kleinkopf and I are members of the steering committee of the Abrahamic Initiative. The mission of the Abrahamic Initiative is to provide a forum for dialogue among Jews, Christians, and Muslims and to foster mutual understanding and appreciation for the faith perspectives of the three traditions. You can learn more about the Abrahamic Initiative at sjcathedral.org.

In light of the Fort Hood shootings last week, Anne and other members of the Initiative's steering committee wrote:

"The Abrahamic Initiative affirms its belief that Islam, alongside Judaism and Christianity, is a religion of peace, tolerance, and compassion with its core values rooted in the love of all people. We further affirm that hatred and violence are not part of the teachings of Islam and that the vast majority of Muslims absolutely reject the use of violence. Further, we recognize our Muslim compatriots to be as patriotic and loyal to America as any other constituency.

"We therefore call upon all citizens of Colorado to resist the urge to categorize any persons with stereotypes that may be harmful and unjust and to remember the universal admonition to love our neighbors as ourselves, and during this difficult time, to reach out to our Muslim neighbors with compassion, respect, and understanding."

May it be so.

The Blogger Flogger

from George Anastos, Senior Minister

"We should start a First Plymouth blog" our Youth Director told me enthusiastically. "It will be a great communication tool and we can really get the electronic generations engaged."

I guess I am not electronic; I grew up analogue, not digital. I feel good about that. I do still have transistors though. (Note to electronic generations: "transistors" were big gas-filled tubes that populated the guts of televisions and radios and children back at the dawn of time (1950's). They belched occasionally and we got static on our radios and snow on our TV screens and conduct demerits on our report cards.)

Back to blogging: I have always thought bloggers were a bit off. Not because they want to write, but because of what they have to put up with as a result. The few times I have read a blog I have been stunned, not by the blog itself, but by the responses (reactions would be a better word). Writing anonymously, respondents go for the blogger's jugular and write some pretty petty and even mean things. Sometimes they seem to flog the blog. Anonymity at times is a vehicle for license.

But blog I shall, O brave, new world. I haven't decided yet if I have the courage, or perhaps the good sense, to read or not read the responses. That may depend on how provocative a given entry is. So stay tuned. Analogue Man is evolving and walking upright. My transistors are feeling a belch coming on and I may have to write something.

"Whole Earth" Engineer Honored

First Plymouth is a "Whole Earth" church, committed to loving and respecting the interconnectedness of all of God's creation and practicing wise stewardship of the earth.

We are proud to have as a member of our congregation a civil engineer by the name of Don Roberts, who has just been recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as a 2009 Distinguished Member for "visionary contributions that have brought the principles of sustainability into the lexicon of the engineering profession and for his passionate dedication to educating the next generation of engineers in service to others." Don lives out the "whole earth" philosophy in his commitment to sustainable development worldwide. Congratulations, Don!

First Plymouth "LOFTS" into Community Service

First Plymouth's first LOFT (Living Our Faith Together) project was a resounding success on Sunday. LOFT is a new mission focus for our church, and it involves a community outreach project on the second Sunday of each month. Watch for more information each month on this chance for everyone to participate in helping out in the larger community.

Beautiful fall weather made for a perfect "Got Dreams" Thanksgiving food drive at the University & Dry Creek King Soopers today. Thanks to Heather Greenwood's tremendous organizing efforts, the dedication of so many First Plymouth volunteers, the cooperation of King Soopers, and the generous and caring spirit of so many of our neighbors shopping at King Soopers, we were able to collect a grand total of:

310 cans of cranberry sauce

324 boxes/bags of stuffing
956 cans of vegetables
362 gravy packets/cans
114 bags of cookies
81 boxes of crackers
118 aluminum roaster pans
81 $15 King Soopers gift cards (total: $1,215)
$130 in additional King Soopers cards
25 cans of miscellaneous items (yams, etc.)

It was exactly as Jay (the founder of Got Dreams) had told us it would be: it started out a little bit calm, and then rapidly picked up speed. And we could never judge by outward appearances what sort of response we'd get to our requests for donations: a pinched-looking old man you'd think would be a skinflint would end up being extremely generous. A couple of gen-X'ers who looked like they didn't have much money to spare would contribute practically a whole meal. There's a powerful lesson there.

What was perhaps the most inspirational of many inspiring things was seeing our children volunteering in so many ways: counting food items, filling boxes, and handing out fliers.

It was a deeply moving and inspirational day - and just a lot of FUN! - and we're so thankful to Heather, Troy, and the rest of the volunteers who've made LOFT a reality.

First Plymouth Starts Blogging!

Welcome to the First Plymouth blog! We're glad to see you here and hope you'll come back and visit often.

On Mondays, we're planning an overview of what's happening at First Plymouth for the coming week. Midweek look for a post from a member of the program staff - perhaps George Anastos on something relating to the upcoming sermon or his thoughts on events and developments at church and in the community, Eric Smith on youth issues and concerns, or Jane Anne Ferguson on her sabbatical pilgrimage. And occasionally at other times, there might be a guest post from a member of the congregation or a friend of the church.

We're excited about joining the world of blogging and look forward to chatting with you this way.