Thanksgiving in the Season of Christmas

I met with a friend who is also in ministry and learned that we share a love for the Christmas season.  For those of you that don’t know our routine, each year our family puts up two Christmas trees—an artificial tree with white lights and crystal ornaments that is upstairs in the living room, and a live tree with colored lights and multi-colored ornaments downstairs in the den.  The live tree goes up as soon after Thanksgiving as our favorite tree vendor starts selling them—we are usually one of the first ones on the lot—and by the time we take it down on New Years it is a dry stick of kindling, no matter how much we water it.  The artificial tree goes up around Halloween, and stays up at least until Valentines Day, and sometimes longer.

My friend follows a similar yet different schedule.  His tree goes up as soon as the World Series is over.  Then he and his wife put up a few more around the house, and by Thanksgiving they put six small trees outside, and one on the deck.  After New Year’s Day the trees are put away, except for one four-foot tree which replaces the main tree in the living room by the fireplace.  The decorations for that get changed from month to month, cumulating in April after baseball season starts, when it is decorated with Orioles stuff.

He says that in his house there are two seasons: Christmas season and baseball season.

I’ll come back to him.

I was in a grocery store in late October and there was a section of shelves dedicated to holiday decorations, and I was struck by the fact that there were Halloween decorations, and next to them were Christmas decorations.  I would have thought that maybe there would have been Thanksgiving decorations in between, but no—it was Halloween, then Christmas.

Used to be that Thanksgiving was seen as its own holiday, but then it was like Thanksgiving just became the official kickoff to the Christmas season.  Eat some turkey, and get ready for Black Friday.  Now the Christmas season gets kicked off right after Halloween—or maybe right after the World Series—and then we just blow right through Thanksgiving.  Pam and I were at the mall last weekend, and Santa was already bouncing kids on his knee.  Oh, and we were at the mall to do some Christmas shopping.  The official launch of Water For Christmas was more than a week ago.  The Creative Arts Team has already been working on Christmas decorations for the church, and their work begins in earnest this week, as next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent.

Thanksgiving has become just a momentary blip in the Christmas season.

This is more an observation about our society than one about the church, because Thanksgiving has never really been a religious holiday; it has never been a part of the Christian calendar.  (This season before Advent is called Kingdomtide and actually begins at the end of the Pentecost season in late May.)  The origins of Thanksgiving are as a harvest festival, and was observed at various times until President Lincoln declared it a national holiday and unified its observance.  So it’s not an official church or Christian holiday.

But still.

Back to my friend.  We get together regularly to talk about our spiritual lives and challenge and encourage one another in our walk with Christ.  His focus lately is in wanting to be more thankful about everything, and so beginning fifty days before Thanksgiving he has made a concerted effort to be aware of things in his life for which he needs to be thankful.  In the evening he reflects  on his day and writes in a journal about the things he is thankful for in that day.

So, while on the outside it may appear that he goes straight from baseball season to the Christmas season, in reality he is consciously working to develop a real spirit of thanksgiving in his soul. 

And that is more than just a blip in the Christmas season.

Rather than seeing Thanksgiving as a kickoff to Christmas or just a momentary interruption in the preparation for Christmas, maybe we ought to view the Christmas season as an opportunity to develop a spirit of thanksgiving in our souls.  To reflect on the people, the events, and the circumstances that are in our lives for which we can be thankful.  To learn to be content with who we are, with who others are, with where we are in life, and with what we have.  To be less materialistic and more aware that, unlike a lot of people in our world, we don’t have to worry about literally surviving another week or even another day.  And that we can do something for those who do.

The Real Reason the Redskins Won

Redskin's $100 million defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth's mother, Linda, called Redskins coach Jim Zorn last week to give him a pep talk before the Redskins faced the Broncos.  She told him to "tell your buddies, if you go out there and just have fun, don't worry about winning or losing, just go out have fun, it'll be okay," Zorn said.  So did that do the trick?

Please.  Don't be silly.  Here's the real reason the Redskins won:

 That's Angela and her friends getting their picture taken with Haynesworth Friday night before Sunday's game.  Note how Angela is snuggling up close with Albert, actually touching him.  See, the Eubanks touch is like an anointing, and it is so powerful that he carried it back and "infected" the entire locker room.

Result: Redskins 27, Broncos 17.

Now you know.

Water Wow

Last year it took Water For Christmas about 3 1/2 weeks to raise $10,000.

This year we did it in a day.

Wow.

First Gift raised over $10k last week.  That's two wells on the way to three.

That's clean water for over 500 people for 20 years.

Way to go people.  And keep it up.  Spread the word.

First Gift

Pam does Christmas shopping all year long.  It can be April, and she'll see something that she thinks someone in our family would like, and buys it for Christmas.  She's really organized.

I, on the other hand, am not.  I think about Christmas presents round about...now. 

So today, my donation to Water For Christmas really is the first gift I'm buying for Christmas.

$10 doesn't get much of a gift these days.  Maybe a stocking stuffer.  OK, a pretty nice stocking stuffer, but a stocking stuffer nonetheless.

Here's what $10 will do this Christmas:

This little boy is drinking clean water from a Charity:Water well in a small Liberian village.

This isn't one of Charity:Water's publicity pictures.  Jody Landers took this picture herself when she was in Liberia a week ago.

So it's not just a Charity:Water well.  It's a Water For Christmas well.  It's what we were able to do last year.  And what we're going to do again this year.

It starts today.

$10.  A stocking stuffer.  And clean water for one person for the next ten years.

If you want to see more pictures from Jody's trip, click on her blog link to the left.  If you need more info on First Gift before donating, take a look at this.  And if you're ready to give, click here.

Tomorrow is the Day

The Unwelcomed Word

One thing you can’t help but notice as you read through the prophets of the Old Testament is how unwelcomed their messages were. What the prophets—the genuine ones, the one’s whose oracles and/or writings made it into the scriptures—had to say was unpopular, and the kings in particular but often the people also didn’t like what they heard. More than once there was an effort to silence an unpopular prophet. Amos was told to get out of town and take his prophecies somewhere else (Amos 7:10-13). King Jehoiakim took his penknife and, as a scroll from Jeremiah was read to him, sliced off sections as they were read and threw them into the fireplace (Jeremiah 36). No wonder Jeremiah whined so much when God called him to be a prophet. It didn’t make you a very popular person.

I mention this because it seems that every time I hear someone talk about God telling them to do something—admittedly (and thankfully) that’s not often—it seems quite often to be something that they would want to do anyway. Something that might benefit them. Something that would result in them saying that God blessed them.

I don’t very often hear someone saying that they felt God leading them to do something costly. To do something that would require, not just a little bit of sacrifice, but a lot of sacrifice. To do something that would result in their crying out like Isaiah, “Woe is me!”

Of course I would be a little worried if someone came to me and actually used the words, “Woe is me!” But you get my point.

Why is it that when God speaks to people, it seems more often than not to be a welcome word? What happened to the prophetic pattern of the unwelcome word?

Yes, I know that the Old Testament is the Old Testament, that we are a New Testament people, living in the age of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So why would I want hearken back to an age gone by, an age that was ended by the coming of the Messiah who proclaimed Good News? Am I just in a bad mood or something? 

It’s just that the conditions that the prophets spoke out against still exist in our world. They don’t just exist, they are pervasive, and God is as offended by them now as he was back then. He hasn’t changed his mind. The prophets held those in power accountable for doing justice, and when they instead perpetrated injustice they heard about it, whether they liked it or not. And what is injustice? Try this definition from Gary Haugen, founder of International Justice Mission: “Injustice occurs whenever power is misused to take from others what God has given them, namely, their life, dignity, liberty, or the fruits of their labor.”

And God needs people who are willing to do some dangerous things: speak truth to power, stand up against those who profit from injustice, and stand up for those who are victimized by it.

We understand that those in power, like King Jehoiakim, won’t welcome the word, but we also understand that Jeremiah didn’t relish having to tell it to him either. No one would. It’s dangerous to speak to the powers that way.

Which means that we have a choice. As Haugen points out, we can be safe, or we can be brave, but we can’t be both.

We welcome a word from God that promises us safety, security, and an avoidance of suffering. A word from God that would send us into dangerous places where there is real suffering isn’t necessarily a welcomed word. But it’s a necessary word. Following the will of God in a fallen world will generate some pain and suffering on our part, and who welcomes that? So we must be brave, and follow the unwelcomed call.

We have to remember that it was to victims of injustice that Jesus proclaimed that he had good news. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19) 

Now, we get to be bearers of that good news. And as bearers of good news, we may have to go some places that will make us uncomfortable; we may have to do some things that will make us uncomfortable; we may have to confront some people, which will make us feel uncomfortable. It may even be dangerous. But when we go, those to whom we minister will see our actions as a welcomed word. And that is truly good news for us as well.

Never Thoroughly Intended It

"Lord, teach us to pray,” one of Jesus’ disciples said to him one day.  I’ve always found a measure of comfort in that.  If one of Jesus’ disciples, who was with him constantly—watching, observing, listening, asking questions—didn’t know how to pray, my incompetence at it didn’t seem so alarming.  It still bothered me, but at least it meant that I was normal.

Likewise, when I read Thomas Merton in Contemplative Prayer: “One cannot begin to face the real difficulties of the life of prayer and meditation unless one is first perfectly content to be a beginner and really experience himself as one who knows little or nothing and has a desperate need to learn the bare rudiments…We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners.”  That was oddly comforting as well.  It is a little disturbing, I’ll admit, to think that I’ll never get “good” at prayer, whatever that means, but at least I know that my struggles, my fumbling around, my lack of competence, is normal.  If Merton wasn’t just jerking us around, if he himself really felt like a beginner at prayer throughout his life, then I shouldn’t feel so bad.

Except I do.  Seriously, who likes to do anything in which they never move beyond the level of beginner?  I hear guys who play golf regularly who, by their own description of their play, are pretty bad golfers, and I wonder why they go through the time and expense of playing if they aren’t getting any good at it.  Maybe it’s the snazzy clothes they get to wear.

If I started playing guitar and after 15 years of practice never moved beyond the level of beginner I would just quit playing.

And, you know, maybe start building guitars.

So I have found myself both embracing the concept of always being a beginner at prayer while fighting against it, wanting it not to be so, working to prove that it isn’t, even though I sense that it is.  And that’s pretty frustrating.

And when I get frustrated with it, I fall back into the comfort of it.

I recently read a statement from William Law from his book, A Serious Call To a Devout and Holy Life, published in 1728.  I’ve not read the book, but it is the book which John Wesley, Charles Wesley, George Whitfield, and William Wilberforce all credited with causing a major turning point in their lives.  As it’s going on three-hundred years old, you would expect some of the language to be archaic.  Remember that words like “pious” and “primitive” didn’t have the negative connotations back then that they have acquired in modern vernacular; so substitute “devout” or “spiritual” for “pious” and “early” for “primitive” and you’ll be in business.

"If you will here stop and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but because you never thoroughly intended it."

Now that’s just mean.  It’s not comforting at all.  And it hit me between the eyes when I read it, because it’s true.

“Never thoroughly intended it.”  Any prayerlessness on my part cannot be blamed on ignorance or inability, though I may be ignorant as well as incompetent at prayer.  Prayer is a matter of intention and desire; and likewise prayerlessness is a matter of intention and prayer.  None of us can blame busyness either; we find time for what is important to us.  If we don’t have time for prayer, it’s because prayer just isn’t that important.  We never thoroughly intended it.

I’m still working my way through this.  I don’t like it, find no comfort in it, and wish it weren’t true.

But I’m afraid that it is.