O Holy Night

This is a Christmas gift for you, my friends, on the longest night of the year. Blessings.

Spirit of Christmas

This is an original Christmas carol to share with you, my friends.

May you have a blessed and wonder-filled season.

I wrote it years ago during seminary, when I was enrolled in a class on the history of Christian thought with Drs. Roberta Bondi  and Bill Mallard (and sitting next to an attractive young woman named Sandy O'Quinn who I was not yet married to). We were studying Athanasius, who was very influential in the 4th century in clarifying the doctrine of the incarnation. He was well known for the idea that God in Christ came down from above that we might be brought from below.

For more on Athanasius see this article.

Martin Luther on the Pandemic

Some have asked about the quote I shared this morning on dealing with a pandemic from Martin Luther, famous leader of the Protestant Reformation. 

It is from an open letter he wrote in 1527, during an outbreak of a plague in the middle of the throes of the Reformation he had started ten years earlier. I remind myself he wrote it during extremely divided times - yes, worse than ours - when people were polarized by the Reformation. Their struggle with death was filtered through their religious disagreements.

It is said that Protestants saw the plague as God’s judgment on Catholic idolatry, and Catholics accused Protestants of weakening the unity of the Church in a time of crisis. Both sides painted the opposition in the worst possible light. Luther himself was being accused of irresponsibility by staying in Wittenberg to do ministry when officials had asked religious leaders and others to flee the city. 

The open letter is entitled “Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague.” I shared only part of the quote this morning (the boldfaced part), but it is so incredibly applicable to our times that I am giving you a more complete quote from this famous spiritual giant:

“Others sin on the right hand. They are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague. They disdain the use of medicines; they do not avoid places and persons infected by the plague, but lightheartedly make sport of it and wish to prove how independent they are. They say that it is God’s punishment; if he wants to protect them he can do so without medicines or our carefulness. That is not trusting God but tempting him. . . .

“No, my dear friends, that is no good. Use medicine; take potions which can help you; fumigate house, yard, and street; shun persons and places where your neighbor does not need your presence or has recovered, and act like a man who wants to help put out the burning city. What else is the epidemic but a fire which instead of consuming wood and straw devours life and body? You ought to think this way: ‘Very well, by God’s decree the enemy has sent us poison and deadly offal. Therefore I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid persons and places where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me, and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely, as stated above. See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God’.”

Imitate the Fish

 

What is Truly Essential about Wesleyan Spirituality?

These are difficult times in North American Methodism. I don’t know what all the answers are related to moving forward, though I know unequivocally that I am not leaving my spiritual home.

I believe traditional, centrist, and progressive United Methodist are called to love and serve together and move forward in history, allowing diversity of thought and practices rather than drawing lines in the sand mirroring the culture wars of America, over issues that are not even mentioned in the gospels or the ancient creeds. It’s in our Wesleyan DNA to be connectional, and  it’s Christ’s vision for the Church evident in his prayer for us in John 17. We are indeed better together.

What is essential to Wesleyan spirituality that will guide us through these times and help us move forward together? I found an excellent article on this subject here and wanted to share it with you.

If you’d like to hear more about our efforts to stay in the UMC, see this website.

#stayumc

New Content on Stay UMC Website

There is some new content posted in the Stay UMC website. If you are a North Alabama United Methodist, I encourage you to have a look.

The website features a video testimony by Rev. Kip Laxson of Asbury UMC in Birmingham. As one of my fellow Stay UMC board members, he puts succinctly why so many of us in North Alabama do not want to leave the UMC in the present impasse.

I do not condemn the North Alabama chapter of the WCA or the “New Methodist Movement” they are hoping to give birth to as they leave our denomination. However, I believe we are better together. I believe traditionalists, centrists, and progressives can be one church without a schism over issues that are’t even mentioned in the gospels or ancient creeds. We can find a way to contextualize ministry across the country without losing integrity and truly move forward as people of “open hearts, open minds, and open doors.” And we can be known for our love, not our intolerance.

I also do not believe those who are leaving our denomination should force the entire conference to leave and go with them against our will.

There is also new content in the FAQ section of the Stay UMC website For the Stay UMC website, which may be found here.

God Brings Life to the Dead Branches

Today, I spent some time with the most unlikely of roses.

We have lived in our new home for over four months. As always, moving is a chore (for pastors, it's an occupational hazard). There has been an enormous amount of things to do.

I have loved meeting the people of our new church. That's the best part. But I often say "I love going to new churches, I just don't love moving to get there!" Between unpacking and getting settled, decorating the house, reclaiming the yard, meeting my neighbors, and starting a new ministry, it's always a challenge to get it all done. With COVID, it's been strange challenge indeed.

One of the tasks that went undone was tending to a particular dead rosebush in our backyard. I've noticed it countless times. It's right behind the house, in front of the garage and under an old clothesline post we've reclaimed with teal spray-paint and bird feeders. The branches are brittle and it has looked dead as a doornail for four straight months. I've been meaning to cut it away.

I'm glad I didn't. Last Sunday, suddenly, I noticed a breach of the deadness with a burst of life. A new rose blossom had appeared. Out of the deadness, there is life. Out of the dryness, there is joy. Wow. God did it again.

I have contemplated all week this gift of God. There is so much deadness around us right now. The coronavirus has been an unimaginable curb of normal life, not to mention the death it has brought to hundreds of thousands. The country has been through divisive times politically, as if there are two alternative worlds we live in, not one. Signs of structural racism abound, and I wonder if the energy to bring about prophetic change will fall away as it too often does. The denomination I love is going through a long, drawn-out, slow division as a group makes plans to secede and go start a new denomination.

It feels like there is a dead rosebush that I can't seem to get around to. It just lingers. Where are the signs of life? Then when I least expected it, it appeared. There is hope.

This week, I spent some more time with that little rose. It's moved from being a rosebud to a fully formed thing of beauty. I just can't bring myself now to break away the dead branches, for now they stand behind the rose as a reminder of the deadness God has brought life to.

God did it again. And God will keep doing it again.

Here's a picture of what I experienced in my quiet time today. May the joy of the Lord burst forth in your life, too.