Driving past a church this morning, I noted that the Nativity scene was already down (sorry Wise Men — snooze, ya’ lose.  Wouldn’t want to honor Epiphany by accident or on purpose…) and Mary and Joseph were laying face down in the snow and the baby Jesus was buried under a stack of wood and hay; one small hand reaching out for rescue from the crushing load.  It struck me as an “on-the-nose” symbolism of our cultural relationship to Christ and Christmas — honor the holiday event for a few weeks in December, then strike the set and put the props away until next year.  And Jesus, for many, is just that — a prop.

When I was a child I once asked my mother why we wrapped Jesus in paper and put him in a dusty box and shut him in a musty, dark closet for eleven months and 25-30 days each year (we didn’t add Jesus to the crèche scene until Christmas Eve, then took things down the week after Christmas.  Our wise men arrived around December 10 and just sat on their camels shooting the breeze with Mary, Joseph, the angel, the shepherds and the animals for a couple weeks — but everyone looked appropriately reverent the whole time.)  There was something disrespectful about shoving Jesus to the back of the closet when we were through with him.  Out of sight, out of mind.  My grandmother actually listened to me, and she left the baby Jesus from her Nativity scene on the fireplace mantle all year ’round.

At my local coffee shop, the “Keep Christ in Christmas” sign that’s been in the window for the past month is already gone.  Along the roadways, denuded Christmas trees lay abandoned, waiting for pickup.  There is no more “Joy to the World” to be found.  Once more, we are done with Christmas.  But how many of us are also done with Christ?  One headline I saw on a news-site says it all: “Soldiers Take Up Arms as Christmas Ends.”  Christmas ends.  It’s all over.  Peace is done, time to kill.  Good cheer is finally no longer expected, we can stop pretending to be nice.  The Valentine’s candy is already out at the local CVS and Target stores.  (And just where is the Martin Luther King, Jr. candy?)

A vacation ad for a Caribbean post-holiday getaway shows Jesus and Santa clinking glasses on a pristine beach, reindeer and camels playing beach volleyball in the background.  It seems that Jesus and Santa can’t wait for all the Christmas craziness to end, either.  (How an adult Jesus gets the vacation a day after his birth is a bit confusing, but then I didn’t know reindeer could spike…)

Keeping Christ in Christmas seems like only half the battle.  The real work begins when we try to keep Christ in the rest of the year.  Too many of us drag Jesus out to pay attention to once (or twice) a year, then shove him into a dark corner until we need/want him next.  This is a challenge for our communities of faith.  Helping people keep a focus on Christ’s role and place in their lives — individually and collectively — is a full-time, year-round task.  It brings to mind one of the more startling and discouraging findings from the worship research I did a few year’s back.  Two of the interview questions we asked were “What did you learn about God?” and “What did you learn about Jesus?” in sermons that people had heard the same day.  One-in-eight (12%) could name something about God and one-in-eleven (9%) could identify something about Jesus, though 71% said that the sermon was “about God” and 86% reported that the sermon was “about Jesus.”  We know that worship is somehow about God and Jesus — two safe answers in most churches — but we don’t always pick up exactly what preachers are saying about them.  And, did you notice I didn’t mention the Holy Spirit?  Well, if you want to hear anything about the Holy Ghost you shouldn’t be United Methodist.  One-in-thirty-nine (2%) remember the Holy Spirit being mentioned, but only one-in fifty-five (<2%) can remember what it was.  It is only during the Advent season and Christmas, Lent and Easter, that the majority of people can recall specific messages and stories about Jesus.  Messages get a little more generic during Kingdomtide.  And the trend of our larger, “popular” churches is to preach about people’s needs rather than God’s will.  I recently watched a few minutes of a United Methodist church broadcast that would have made Joel Osteen proud — the pastor raved about the untapped power of prayer to help us attain our deepest heart’s desires.  Prayer, he admonished, is a tool we have been given with which to build our dream-life.  If we don’t have the life we want, it is because we aren’t praying for it.  The only mention of God in the entire seven-minute sermon was as the dispenser of goods to those who pray well.  There was no mention of Jesus.

Where does Jesus go after Christmas?  Wherever we put him.  If we set him aside, store him in a box, dump him in the shed under a bale of hay, pack him with the other “decorations” down in the basement or out in the garage, it may actually be symbolic of what we do with him in our lives.  I need to be careful to keep him out where I can see him.  I need to hold him in my heart as easily as I can hold a Nativity figurine in my hand.  I need to see him, attend to him, reflect on him, pray to God in his name, walk with him, talk with him, etc., etc.  I can’t do that if I set him aside in the dark recesses of my heart.  I need to keep Christ central in my non-Christmas life so that I might live Christmas a little bit more in our non-Christmas world.

I surf a lot of sites and listen in on a lot of discussion threads about what people choose and choose not to believe.  What is interesting is that both sides deny they are making a choice about what to believe.  Dogmatism swings both ways, and many loud voices on both sides of the argument state as “fact” what is blatantly nothing more than opinion.  Very few people “know” what they have never seen, and just as few can “prove” a negative.  No evidence is not evidence, and depth of feeling doesn’t make something more true.  We choose to believe in God or we choose not to.  But WE CHOOSE.

One of my former associates, a professor at Vanderbilt University, adamantly refused to believe in God or any divine force, yet he is convinced of multiple parallel universes.  He mocks me for believing in something I can’t see, but he also chastises me for not allowing the possibility of unseen universes.  He has chosen — for his own reasons — to disbelieve in God; he has chosen — again for his own reasons — to believe in unseen worlds.  He calls me irrational.

A lovely young woman left the church because she said she could no longer “believe in fairy tales.”  This from the same person who believes that she has seen ghosts, and refuses to accept that she might have hallucinated them.

Some people read the Bible and see only the limited human descriptions of the divine detailing an angry God, and they decide that this invalidates anything God might actually be.  They choose what to accept and what to reject.  Christians pick and choose the parts of the Bible they like to agree with, and they toss out anything they dislike.  Then, all too often, these same Christians take their customized version of the faith, and pretend that it is “universal truth.”  No wonder others (with their own universal truths) get annoyed.

One of my best friends in New Jersey was a rabbi who knew our Christian scriptures as well as most of my pastor friends.  We had long discussions of our respective faiths, and he was always very clear that he understood the evidence presented in the Christian scriptures, but that they simply were not compelling or convincing to him.  He chose not to accept what millions of others did.  But he was honest to admit that it was a choice.

Even within Christianity, belief is a constant chain of choices.  Believe or not believe?  Follow Christ or merely believe?  Become a disciple or merely a follower?  Live as a faithful steward or merely a disciple?  Seek mastery or stay satisfied with where one is?  There is no Christianity that escapes dichotomy.  One cannot go both East and West at the crossroads.  Sometimes we have to choose (or get stuck).  In The United Methodist Church, we face a dilemma.  For centuries we were a faith for “believers,” but the “powers-that-be” declared that belief is no longer an acceptable baseline — we are to become a denomination of “disciples.”  The denomination made a choice for the whole church that a majority of church members have no intention of making for themselves.  The discipline, sacrifice, intensity, commitment, and challenge of discipleship is indeed an important choice to make, but it cannot be a forced choice.  Never in our history have we expected so much (or much of anything) from our members.  Now we have declared that to be United Methodist is to choose to become a disciple of Jesus Christ for the purpose of transforming the world.  It’s a great vision, but a hard choice.

And sadly one that most of our leaders aren’t willing to model.  We are so bent on preserving our own institution that the world is left pretty much to its own devices.  We want our warm, cozy churches and our bright shiny windows and screens and our fancy sound systems, ooh, and maybe a coffee bar.  We need to pay our apportionments, though if other things come up we may not pay them in full.  The mission of the church may have to wait until the economy gets better.  We need to spend millions on getting more people to come to us before we will consider spending thousands to equip people to go out to others.  There may be ten thousand doors, but way too many of them are entrances rather than exits.

The United Methodist Church has some hard choices to make in the immediate future — to become disciples or to stay church members, to serve God or prop up the institution, to share Christ or to shoot recruitment videos, to be the body of Christ or become an irrelevant carcass.  Will we stay fixated on our possible death, or will we choose life.  It will be interesting to find out.

No, it’s not a generic wish for peace on earth, but a specific wish for those of us calling ourselves “Christian.”  I wish that we — collectively and individually –could provide an example to the whole world of mercy, justice, civility, kindness, grace, acceptance, love, and joy, so that people would come to believe that faith in Christ actually makes some kind of difference.  It is not that we should never have conflict, but that we negotiate our differences in a healthier way.  It is not that we make everything right, but that we speak out in the face of injustice.  It isn’t that we compromise our values, but that we value respect and dignity as much as we value being righteous.  I wish we could become the body of Christ, able to serve and give and heal whenever and wherever we are — beginning in our own congregations.

Part of what makes the Christmas story so phenomenal is that we know how it all turns out.  We know who Jesus is.  His birth narrative — for us — is nothing more than a remembrance.  It is the story of the genesis of God’s redemptive act.  It is the pivotal point upon which the gate of history swings.  Yet, I always wonder what it was like before the ending was well-known.  There are some truly amazing — incredible, unbelievable, mind-bending — aspects to the birth of Christ that I think have been lost in translation — translation of language, time, culture, worldview, perspective, and belief.

A poor, insignificant, uneducated girl lacking any power or influence in the world receives a divine visitation.  If she is a product of her culture and station in life, she is likely very superstitious, feeling more fear than reverence for things spiritual.  She has a rudimentary understanding of her own body and physiology and is awaiting marriage to a man she may very well not know at all.  And she discovers she is pregnant.  And this is one of the absolute worst fates to befall an unwed girl in her time and place.  In 999 cases out of 1,000, her betrothal to Joseph would be null and void and she would become a social outcast at best, put to death at worst.  And in the unlikely event that Joseph might keep Mary, the inglorious reputation would be theirs for life.  They would hold no respect or power in society.  They would likely renounce name and home and ancestry to begin life new where they were strangers — another guarantee that they would never hold power or influence.  A young couple — not unusual for the woman to be 12 or 13, the man to be anywhere from 18-25 for a first marriage — essentially on the verge of losing everything of worldly value.

Joseph, a man of the trades class, uneducated but skilled, probably established in a family business.  With a pregnant woman — a woman impregnated by a spiritual force only she, and later Joseph, can testify to — Joseph would of necessity leave the family business.  He would still be a carpenter, but only to do those itinerant jobs left over by master craftsmen.  His would be a much harder life, forcing him to travel where there was work.  All this is speculative, but based on a very simple, primitive culture that is fairly well understood.

The whole census concept is debated in scripture, but it could be that Mary and Joseph were essentially homeless and looking for a place to set down roots.  Regardless of actual motivation, an honest appraisal of Mary’s state at the time of the birth is heartbreaking.  No family or friends around, walking great distances while in the advanced stages of her pregnancy, in unfamiliar — and hostile (crimes against poor travellers were constant on the byways of the first century middle East) — territory, with no clean lodgings or medical attention.  I cannot conceive of the terror of two young people, alone in a strange place, facing the birth of a child.  We so often create a warm, sterile, sweet and lovely image in our mind of an idyllic birth, where apparently Jesus simply slides peacefully from Mary and she looks like a white, middle-class, “million bucks” who has been through nothing more than a stressful morning.  I remember what my wife looked like after a moderately simple birth in a modern hospital with drugs and ambient music and she hadn’t been walking dozens of miles through the wilderness a short time before.  Somehow, I think we’re missing something with Mary’s delivery of Jesus.

Relief?  Fear?  Despair?  Certainly not joy — at least not immediately.  Mary holding a newborn infant wrapped in the cleanest rags they could find, Joseph close by (probably not knowing what to do for Mary and the baby anymore than billions of fathers through time…), in the dark, in the smells and sounds of animals.  Even if another “heavenly” appearance occurred, would it give more comfort or panic to a young, uneducated Jewish couple?  Chances are they were not of the wing of Judaism looking expectantly for a Messiah, but a more orthodox and simple sect.  How were they making sense of everything happening to them?  And when shepherds — strange men of the fields that they did not know — showed up, was it immediately a moment of joyful celebration or another moment of abject fear?  Mary witnessed these things and locked them away in her heart — we translate this as a wondrous, happy experience, even using the word “treasure” for her experiences — but I sometimes wonder if it wasn’t as much shock and trauma that inscribed these events on her psyche as it was divine intervention…

And think about it.  A poor, homeless, (essentially bastard) child is born in a rural backwater.  At best, a handful of people are aware the child even exists — even with the angels best efforts.  What changed that first Christmas night.  Yes, okay, everything, but that’s because we know the rest of the story.  For the vast majority of the known world, it wasn’t a special night.  It certainly wasn’t a holiday and it wasn’t a time of rejoicing.  The people went to bed oppressed by a regent power and they woke up oppressed by the same regent power.  They went to bed poor (97% of them, anyway) and they woke up poor.  The Hebrew people went to bed Jewish and they arose the next morning as Jewish as ever.  What has become for us such an amazing event was once a massive, secret non-event.

Forgive my silly ramblings, but I think putting it into a more realistic perspective doesn’t rob the story of its majesty and power.  If anything, it makes it that much more miraculous.  The odds against the event were astronomical, and it changed EVERYTHING.  Cool, huh?  It makes me more committed to sharing the good news with everyone I can.  It is why I am not so worried about all the rules and regulations required to be a “good” Christian, but am more interested in the hope, justice, mercy, kindness, love, peace, and joy that comes to us as a freely given gift from God.  Once I have given away all the love, joy, peace, mercy, acceptance, tolerance, forgiveness, justice, grace, and kindness I can, then I will worry about whether or not people deserve it.  If grace can come to the poor couple from Nazareth in the form of the Christ child, I guess it can pretty much come to anyone.  At least, that’s Christmas to me.

There is a special kind of snow — it falls not in flakes, but in hunks.  It drifts down in surreal, tumbling patterns and sticks to everything.  It muffles all sound.  It transforms the world into a snowglobe.  There is nothing I love more than walking in such snow, and it always brings to mind a personal epiphany when I was twenty years old.  1978 was a crisis year for me.  In the fall I had a heart attack that forced me to drop out of college, give up a job I loved, and to see myself in a whole new light.  At twenty, a young man should be hitting his peak.  In the early fall, I had everything bright and shiny before me.  Good health (I thought), good grades, good job, good relationship with a great woman, and no clouds on the horizon.  I was active in my church, having “come back” to the faith a year before — I was working with youth, teaching Sunday school, singing in a choir, and active in Bible study.  My life felt balanced and sound for the first time in years.  Then, in October, I collapsed after my English class and woke up in the hospital.  A congenital weakness caused my heart to seize, and for a couple weeks things were touch and go.  I got back on my feet in November, but with strict limitations.  I took incompletes in all my classes, had to leave my job at a campus bookstore, and my girlfriend dumped me because she couldn’t take the stress of my ill-health.  I had to give my youth group and Sunday school activities over to friends.  I was feeling about as low as I could go.

Depression is a terrible thing.  It is both insidious and relentless.  I remember sitting alone in my apartment too lazy to even get up and turn on a light.  I sat brooding, dozing, despairing.  I didn’t decorate for Christmas, didn’t listen to any holiday music, didn’t visit friends (and didn’t answer the phone or the door when friends tried to visit me), didn’t do any shopping.  All I did was feel sorry for myself and to give in to the fear that my heart was going to betray me and give out all together.  I was a mess.

About a mile from my apartment was a small, gated botanical garden — part of Ball State University’s horticultural department — called Christy Woods.  I have no idea who “Christy” was, but the few enclosed acres were a favorite spot — a place I often went in spring and summer to walk and to read.  For some reason I never spent much time there in the fall or winter, but one day the week before Christmas in 1978 I got the urge to return to Christy Woods.  I left my apartment without hat or gloves or jacket, and trudged off.  While walking, it began to snow, softly and gently at first, more vigorously and seriously as time went by.  Already feeling sorry for myself, I decided to forge ahead — thinking maybe I would freeze to death, putting myself out of everyone’s misery.  I got to the gate at Christy Woods, and as I passed through it was like leaving one reality for another.  The wind died and the blowing, stinging snow drifted gently in fluffy blobs.  Everything was covered in soft, puffy mounds of undisturbed snow.  I strolled along a pathway, the sound of my own footsteps the only noise I could hear.  I rounded a curve, and before me stood two deer, a buck and a doe.  They watched me with large, liquid eyes, but neither moved to run away.  I walked past them, winded by their subtle, simple beauty.  I walked deeper into the woods and it got dark, but the luster of the snow and the bright glow of the clouds allowed me to see clearly.

I thought about the deer.  I marvelled at the snow.  I kept on walking, and I began to cry.  It felt as though my heart was breaking.  All my defenses came down and I gave into my fear and anger and sadness.  I sobbed and walked, walked and sobbed, and as I went I began to feel lighter.  Something shifted.  I began to feel hope.  I began to feel like maybe what was happening to me wasn’t the end of the world.  I began to think I could start over.  I began to pray, something I had not been able to do for weeks.  I dropped to my knees in the snow, and I haven’t the foggiest notion what I said or thought.  I just knelt there for a time, and when I stood up, I was okay.  Not just better, but okay.  I resolved to get myself back in decent health and get back in school.  I determined to get another job as soon as possible.  I figured the girlfriend thing would take care of itself in time.  I knew I wanted to get back to church and “my kids” as soon as possible.  And I wanted to be with my family and friends for Christmas.

I marched back to the gate to Christy Woods.  When I got to the sign, I noted that heavy snow hung, obscuring the second half.  Only “Christ” was left uncovered.  I remember thinking at the time that this was overkill, but hey, every artist likes to sign their work.  I went home, turned on a light, and put on Christmas music.  I didn’t know it then but, I have come to understand it since, that walk in Christy Woods changed my life.  Would it have happened anywhere else?  Probably, but it didn’t.  The shock and surprise of meeting the deer on the path opened something in me in a way I cannot explain, and since that chance encounter I have never been the same.  A spiritual experience?  Divine intervention?  I don’t know and I don’t care.  I was lost but now am found; was blinded but now I see.  Grace is amazing, no matter where it comes from, no matter when.  I received new life in a gentle, glorious snowfall.  It’s no wonder I love snow so much.

Okay, this falls into the “so insignificant you probably shouldn’t waste time reading it” category, but an amazing thing has happened this year: it feels like Christmas!  And the only thing that has changed (other than my job, the state in which I live, the house in which I live, the car I drive…) is snow.  In Wisconsin we got seventeen inches of snow,then it stayed cold enough that the snow didn’t go away.  After 15 years in Nashville, where the mere rumor of snow causes people to stampede the grocery store then drive their car into a ditch on the way home, this is epic.  Winter means something here.  Oh, Nashville has seasons (spring, early summer, hot summer, hateful/evil/deadly summer, and grey) but nothing like Wisconsin.  And having grown up in Indiana, Christmas, cold weather, and snow go hand in hand.  It feels likes Christmastime for the first time in fifteen years.

Now, I realize that cold weather only applies to a small segment of the globe as a Christmas characteristic.  I dated a woman from Australia who used to bristle at American Christmas songs steeped in snow, sleigh-rides, snowmen, and winter wonderlands.  For those who celebrate with a Yule-Barbeque blazing on the beach in 103º temps, snow has little significance.  But for me, I never realized just how important it is.  When I remember the truly signficant Christmases past, snow plays an essential role (see tomorrow’s Christmas Memories III: Christy Woods).  It reminds me once again that often it is the little things that make all the difference.

This year I have been religiously faithful in watching sappy Christmas movies.  One of my holiday guilty pleasures in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.  It bears a painfully close resemblance to many of my Christmas gatherings growing up, but it is filled with very small, very real family moments.  Even when the comedy is over the top, it is funny because it is true.  Even Christmas disasters create the personal myth and memory of the holiday.  Family is a mixed blessing — we’re excited to see them come, and delighted to see them go — we wouldn’t change it for the world.

There is, in most of us, a deep hunger and desire for Christmas magic.  It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, The Bells of St. Mary’s, Miracle on 34th Street — the spectacular power of fundamental and lasting transformation is the foundation of each of these stories.  Out of chaos comes not merely order, but something bordering on perfection.  All is right with the world — the supreme hope of Christmas.  Salvation is not just a wish, but a possibility.  What we see with our eyes is always, always mitigated by what we KNOW in our hearts.  Christmas is all about faith… and it is the little things that help us believe in the big things.  Justice begins with a fair and just act.  Kindness starts with a warm greeting and a sincere smile.  Mercy is not just for those we like, but for those we don’t even know.  Peace starts in the heart and emanates outward.  The gifts we receive of joy, hope, peace, and love are ours for one simple purpose — to share… and if enough of us share in small and simple ways, amazing and massive transformation can occur.

Before Christmas is a time for giving, it is a time for being and becoming.  It is a time to open our hearts and lives to the possibility that the gospel might be for us – and through us for others.  The birth of a child is a process, not an event.  The coming of the Christ begins with a little thing — a humble birth in an out-of-the-way, insignificant place to poor, unimportant people.  The event takes place in squalor — filth and odor and noise.  The process that began with angelic revelation unfolds and spreads and transforms.  This is such an amazing story. Such a simple thing.  And they did it all without snow…

Mortality is a scary thing.  I’m not dying, but much of what I have written is.  As of December 31, almost every book I have written for Discipleship Resources is going out of print.  (The one exception is Vital Signs, but its days are numbered as well…)  Part of my identity rests in the books I have written.  They’re not great literature — some would say they’re not even “good” from any literary standpoint.  Still, they are an outward and visible sign of my inward and spiritual journey, offering some of the best insights I have to offer on stewardship (Revolutionizing Christian Stewardship for the 21st Century, Beyond Money) and leadership (FaithQuest, A New Kind of Church, Equipped for Every Good Work, Leadership and Interaction Styles).  It will be weird knowing that these books, many available for most of a decade or more, are no longer “out there.”  For what good they have done and what value they have offered, I am deeply grateful.  And when I am honest, I know that the contribution they have made has been modest at best, and there are more than enough other resources to take their places.

But it is still hard.  I guess I haven’t really admitted how proud I am of the books I have written.  It is more than just ego that swells when someone recognizes me as the author of a book they read and enjoyed.  Nothing makes me happier than finding someone who discovered real value in a book, helping them to be more effective in leadership.  My writing has been an important part of my ministry, and there is something a little discouraging about seeing it going out of print.  The two books I was working on last year — both having been approved by publishers, then pulled due to economic necessity — sit languishing, unfinished.  They seem to me two precious children that nobody wants.  Oh, well, I love them.  And I know they have an audience, simply because whenever I talk about them, people want to know when they will “come out.”  The problem is that my audience is so small that it can’t support what I write.

Thank goodness for this blog.  It has been my “literary” outlet for almost a year.  Once again, I have no real sense of what difference it makes, but my writing isn’t just about who reads it and what they do with it.  I find that I have a need to write, a hunger to share ideas, and a passion to stir things up.  I write for my own enjoyment, then I get a kick out of sharing it with others — even when others disagree or get upset.  Writing is a kind of open dialogue with the world.  I love the give and take writing the blog affords.  And so, I will continue to churn out my thoughts and hope someone, somewhere, finds value.

Once, a few years ago, I saw someone in an airport reading one of my books.  It was the biggest thrill in the world.  But what made it even better was that, when I got closer to the person reading it, I saw it had been read a number of times, with pages marked, notes in the margins, highlighted passages, and random papers stuck here and there.  It was not just read.  It was USED.

My books will hang around a few more years, then, like millions of others, they will disappear and be forgotten.  I, too, insignificant when compared to my ideas, will be forgotten, but for a few wonderful years I have been able to add my thoughts to the discussion and stimulate some new thinking in other people.  Like footprints in the sand, I made a brief impression, and with the waves of time the slate will be wiped clean that others might imprint in their own time and way.  It’s been fun so far.  It will be interesting to see where I will find my voice in the future.  I will continue here, and see where I end up next.

In the not too distant past I sat listening to a United Methodist clergyperson talk about the gifts of the Spirit — a topic in which I have great interest and long involvement.  I truly believe that we are imbued with gifts that transcend mere ability or interest.  These gifts enable us to serve others as the body of Christ.  They are a part of the unique matrix that comprise each individual, and their potential for good is maximized in concert — when gifts are joined, synergy results.  However, I was on a very different wavelength than the woman who was speaking.  Breathlessly, she explained that once we “unwrap” our gift, we “unleash Holy energy” that allows us to “perform miracles.”  We cease to be “merely human” and connect to our “divine nature.”  She said that the first proof of our spiritual giftedness is tongues — every person born in the Spirit can speak in tongues — and that this is evidence that we have connected to the mind of Christ.  His knowledge is SO great that we cannot comprehend it, thus we speak what sounds like gibberish.  From there, God will bestow on us one of thousands of possible “gifts of power,” — among these she named levitation, speaking with the dead, the ability to shape time, the ability to attract wealth, and the ability to become invisible.  Of course, these last few things are only possible for the most devout and blessed.  What this woman was sharing has little to nothing to do with spiritual gifts as described in the early church, but is her reading so surprising?

According to the recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report — Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths – this pastor is not alone.  A rising tide of Americans integrate Eastern, New Age (rhymes with “sewage”?), and occult beliefs into orthodox faith systems.  A large (and growing) number of Christians believe in reincarnation, ghosts, supernatural experiences, astrology, psychics, and unexplained things that go bump in the night.  While Pew doesn’t go much into the phenomenon, culturally we are enamored of vampires, warlocks, demons, and the Apocalypse.  You cannot turn on the television without a supernatural viewing option.  Between Harry Potter and the Twilight series, magic and monsters have dominated the best seller lists for a decade — and Stephen King has dominated for over 30 years.  We eat this stuff up, but do we really believe it?

You betcha!  Ghosts, UFOs, and mind reading are accepted by millions of Americans as fact.  Sit in almost any group and share a spooky unexplained experience and one by one, everyone in the group will open up with one of their own.  We are, by our nature and DNA, a superstitious species.  We are myth-makers, and we explain that which we do not understand in ways that make a sort of sense, even when that sense relies on superstition and magic.  It’s one of the reasons we so love stories.  It’s also a way we have of taking power and control in our lives — making sense out of nonsense.

It helps me each year around this time to remember that the culture in which Jesus was born was steeped in myth, magic, and belief in the supernatural.  This culture had no other explanations for mental illness or disease than demons and evil.  Magi (magicians/”wise” men) were an acknowledged class of people.  Incantations, stones, herbs, etc., were imbued with power, and those who wielded them wisely and well were highly revered.  The gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh were not “simple” gifts, but powerful and potent sources of energy and magic.  The magi were acknowledging the birth of one of their own — a miracle maker.  The birth narratives — whether “true” or not — are laden with magic and mystery.  And in every century since the first we have added more and more magic to the story (animals talking, divine healings, angelic appearances, etc.).  The power of the magic is apparent to all but the most jaded sceptics.  Too many people want to debate whether this is “true,” when the undeniable fact is, it is “real.”  Beliefs — perception, if you will — shapes a kind of reality.  Does Christ become more real to more people at Christmas time?  Is there a greater sense of peace on earth goodwill to all people?  Do people “believe” more at Christmas time?  Well, against all common sense, yes, they do.  A signficant segment of our American culture gets all soft and soppy at Christmas time.  It may not last beyond December 26, but for a couple weeks, people lighten up.  They suspend their cynicism to believe the unbelievable and they allow themselves to be swept up in the magic of something good, and hopeful, and pure, and wonderful.

Not everything in life makes sense.  Not every belief of any person is purely rational.  We are a glorious spectrum stretching from the staring-eyed irrational through the hard-edged rational to the standing-in-the-presence trans-rational.  Some very sane people believe in ghosts and UFOs without one shred of evidence, but they also believe in justice and mercy without any more tangible evidence.  We believe, LOrd, help our unbelief.

Any unexpected December illness in our household growing up was referred to as reindeer flu… and I’ve got it.  Complete physical meltdown over the past 72 hours.  Fever, chills, explosive expulsions out every orifice, aches, pains, moaning, cough, congestion… you name it, I got it.  Now I am sitting in my office sweating like a proverbial pig, feeling nauseous and queasy, wondering how in the world I ever convinced myself that I am well enough to go back to work, but also cognizant of the fact that I have a ton of work piling up if I stay home.  There is no good time for reindeer flu.

I remember the year I got it on December 23.  I was pastoring the Wantage United Methodist Church in New Jersey.  We held two Christmas Eve services — one at 7:30 and one at 11:00.  At 5:00, I was running a 104° temperature and could hardly stand up.  I bundled myself up and trudged off to the church.  Of course, no one had shown up that day to heat up the furnace or clear the walkways, so I did.  At about 6:00 I got a call that the couple coming to light the luminaries were delayed, so I headed back out into the blowing sleet to light a hundred candles sitting in sand in little white bags.  For everyone I lit successfully, two went out and another caught the bag on fire.  Somehow we got through the service — which was mostly our children’s Sunday school classes singing and reading scripture.

I honestly don’t remember anything from this point.  My fever took over and I moved through Christmas Eve in a haze.  I don’t know what I did between services, though some of the members told me I was lighting luminaries again when they showed up at 10:30.  A few people told me that I rambled on and on at the beginning of the service about how glad I was they were all there, and the choir began taking bets on which direction I was going to fall over when I passed out.  Two people told me that I preached the best sermon of my entire ministry, but I think they were just messing with my head.  I don’t know how I got home that night, and I barely remember that Christmas Day — other than we went to my in-laws and I spent the next three days in bed.  Ho, ho, ho.

Looking back on that time, it was tupid of me to endanger both my own health and the health of others because of a misplaced sense of my own importance.  For some reason, I thought Christmas Eve services depended on me.  But surely people would have had a meaningful time without my homily.  The music, the candles, the gospel story read directly from scripture — these have the power to transport people into the glorious story of the Nativity.  I was extraneous (as well as contagious).  I didn’t want to let anyone down, true, but in my feverish condition I was more of a distraction than an inspiration.

There’s never a convenient time to get sick, but for pastors Advent and Christmas week are deadly.  It doesn’t feel like you have the option to BE sick.  There’s just too much to do.  Holy Week, the same thing.  Adrenalin is a great thing — it can carry you through for a while, but then the body simply shuts down when its had enough.  I’m saying a special prayer for all my clergy colleagues as you head into the home stretch.  Don’t get what I’ve got.  It sucks.  And I don’t wish the way I feel on anyone, anywhere.  Be well, but if you do get sick, remember that Christmas doesn’t depend on you.  Take care of yourself, and let others take care of you, too.

We all know Christmas is more about giving than receiving, yet the most significant Christmases of all for me are those where through giving I received more than I can describe or explain.  There is a magical truth in the simple fact that there is no truly unselfish gift.  People who give are the first to admit that they give because of the joy, thrill, and/or satisfaction they receive.  It is in pleasing others, doing something meaningful and kind, that (for me) the true meaning of Christmas comes shining through.  I didn’t always understand this, but I can point to a turning point in my life where the kindness of a whole community of people produced a minor miracle.

In college I was part of a tight-knit cluster of seven people — Dave and Lisa, Steve, Everett and Brenda, Stacy, and myself — who spent a lot of time together and were as close as any family.  We were different ages and from very different backgrounds, but all of us found deep connection with one another.  We were all college kids, scraping by, but generally having a great time — until Brenda contracted a viral infection that put her in and out of the hospital for much of 1979.  Everett and Brenda were a sweet couple that both escaped difficult homes as children and by God’s grace found each other.  Everett’s parents died when he was a toddler, and he spent his life going from one foster family to another.  He never laid down roots, and as an adult had no family to speak of.  Brenda came from an abusive home — her father died when she was a teenager and she was estranged from her mom.  Neither she nor Everett had siblings — they basically had each other, and three beautiful daughters, ages six, four and three.  Everett was a pre-med student, deep in debt with student loans, and working two jobs just to stay in school.  Only a year away from graduation, the loss of Brenda’s income and the mounting medical bills made it unlikely that Everett would be able to finish school.  In early October, Everett lost the higher paying of his two jobs, and their situation got desperate.  Over the course of a couple months, they sold everything not nailed down — stereo, television, car, furniture, books — all to be able to subsist on tomato soup and Kraft macaroni and cheese.  Their home was a sofa, a table and chairs, a few clothes and toys for the kids and Everett’s typewriter and textbooks.

One evening, early in December the remaining five of us were at the church, when Brenda came in sobbing.  She told us that Everett had completely lost his cool and screamed at the girls that there wasn’t going to be Christmas this year and that he didn’t want to hear anything about it.  There was no Christmas, no Santa, no parties, no presents, that Christmas was cancelled this year.  He ranted and raved scared the girls and Brenda so badly that they left and went to a neighbor’s house, where it took hours to get the girls to settle down.  Brenda left the girls with the neighbor and came looking for us.  She said she didn’t know how much longer they could survive the stress and unhappiness.  We consoled her as best we could, and she finally left to get the girls to take them home.  The five of us sat in a funk, wanting to do something, but overwhelmed at the immensity of all Everett and Brenda’s problems.  It felt like there was nothing we could do to help, but as we talked, it became clear that while we couldn’t solve all their problems, there was one thing we could do: give them Christmas.

We began plotting and planning.  Dave and Lisa would give them a television, and I would give them my stereo, Steve and Stacy were going to get a tree and decorations.  We would put the word out about the need for some furniture and we would take up a collection at the church to buy gifts for the girls.  We would ask different groups if they would buy groceries and holiday goodies.  We asked Everett’s favorite professor if he would invite Everett and Brenda and the girls over the Sunday before Christmas so that we could fill up their apartment and decorate.  Our excitement and energy was contagious — people bent over backwards to help us.  Then, it shifted from a kind act to a minor miracle.

Every time one of us would show up at the church, someone would shove an envelope full of cash into our hands.  People brought food by the bushel, and began baking treats.  We got enough cash to buy the girls wonderful gifts and to buy Brenda and Everett a new television and stereo.  The UMW knitted sweater, hat and glove sets for the girls.  One morning I got a phone call.  One of the pillars of the church heard what we were doing and she said, “How much is Everett’s tuition?  I want to pay it so he can stay in school.”  One of the Sunday school classes called and asked, “How much are the outstanding doctor bills?  Our class wants to cover them.”  Other groups banded together to get Everett a used car.  When we showed up to decorate the house on the Sunday before Christmas, thirty-five people from the church were there waiting for us.

We decorated the inside of the house, the outside of the house, and half of the apartment courtyard.  We put up a tree and surrounded it with gifts.  We filled the cabinets and refrigerator with food, and there was so much left over that if covered the countertops and table.  We decided it was much too much food, so we stayed to have a party.  Some folks started baking cookies and filled the house with that wonderful aroma.  We had Christmas music playing on the new stereo, when the front door opened and Everett, Brenda and the girls came in.  The girls faces broke into the most openly joyful expressions I have ever seen.  Brenda stood with her hands clasped in front of the face, tears in her eyes.  And Everett, a big hulking guy who seldom showed emotion, stood stunned with tears rolling down his cheeks.  Everyone in the room cheered, but Everett’s oldest daughter, seeing her daddy cry, came over to him, concerned, and asked, “What’s the matter?”  Everett picked her up and said, “Nothing’s wrong, baby.  I was wrong.  I was wrong about Christmas, and I was wrong about Santa.  And I forgot all about Jesus.  I also forgot what good friends we have.  Merry Christmas, baby.”

This is my “Christmas movie” moment.  Christmas movies are sappy and sweet and they work out in ways that real life seldom does.  But in this case, real life was better than any movie.  A spirit of generosity swept through an ever-expanding circle of people to achieve a miracle — to save a small family on the brink.  Not one of us could have done it alone, but together we were able to achieve more than seemed possible.  There was never a question of what we would do, only how — and as we expanded the circle to include more and more people, an amazing thing happened.

Everett and Brenda are two of the kindest people I have ever known.  They have adopted five additional children, and one of the high points of their family time each year is Christmas.  They are generous to others and pillars of their church.  They have given back so much more than they ever received, and they stand in my life as a symbol of the transformative power of generosity and what it means to truly LIVE in the spirit of Christmas.  I have received many wonderful gifts in my life, but none greater than the gift of giving in community to a family we loved and so keenly wanted to help.