Becoming Incarnational

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.- John 1:14 (NRSV)

Throughout this Advent Season, you and I have explored through my articles on the glory of the incarnation. I find it a great sense of divine grace sometimes how God interjects the incarnation in my life and the lives of those around me. Such a situation of incarnational grace occurred one night this week in a way and place I would have never expected.

            When you’re in a vocational ministry, whenever you walk into a hospital you have barriers, boundaries and rules for yourself to keep the channels of ministry where they need to be, and to remain healthy spiritually and as a person. However God often has a different conception of boundaries than we have.

            I walked into the emergency room with a dear friend and suddenly it hit me as we were sitting in a hospital room. Our job as people of faith isn’t to try and explain why bad things happen to good people with words such as, “it’s God’s will” or “God is doing this to prove something to you.” Or my personal favorite in the wake of all that has happened in the past week, “if you would have been right with God this wouldn’t have happened.” None of these statements are close to the heart of God. My conception of God isn’t that God is judge, jury and executioner, sending gunmen to Connecticut because we took prayer out of schools. My conception of God is more like my parents, who sigh at the mess I’ve made and help me pick it up.

            Our calling is to cling to the incarnation, not only cling but also become the presence of Christ on this planet. We are called to be lovers bold in the broken places as one person puts it. People in our community don’t need lectures on the advantages or disadvantages of gun control (though I remind you Isaiah prays and hopes for a day when we will rid the word of swords and spears, and frankly guns for that matter) What people need is a greater understanding of that grace that was at work before they even realized grace was there.

            My friend in the hospital didn’t need a lecture; she didn’t need theological half-truths or superficial answers. My friend didn’t need a prayer said with words, what she needed a prayer of action. She needed someone to make her laugh, to hold her hand, to show my love in the most incarnate way and assure her while I could never understand what she was going through, I would be present with her.

            That’s the beauty of the incarnation, that’s what we need to articulate as a community. The Word became flesh. Today, in the 21^st century we are that flesh. We are the flesh and bone through which God speaks, acts, and redeems.  My hope for you is that the Word truly is flesh for you this season. I hope and pray that you have a blessed Christmas with friends and family gathered near, and you may experience the incarnation in your own life. Merry Christmas.

My Article of Response to An Elementary Shooting

            The people who walked in darkness, have seen a great light. Those who walked in the shadow of death, on them light has shined. What is the response to such a senseless tragedy? I included that passage from the Jewish Scriptures out of Isaiah as I am normally a writer for the faith section, but I think today we can unite not only as people of faith, but across faith-boundaries, across racial, ethnic, socioeconomic boundaries to pause for a moment to consider a tragedy that has struck our nation.

            There are times that are lives are shaken by the reality of the darkened world in which we live. We unite as a people under the banner of hope, a banner that hopes for a day where we will beat our swords (and guns) into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks. I write not under my normal banner of faith, because some people understandably don’t have faith at a time like this. The one thing that unites us as a community like Statesville, or Newtown is that we wake up the next day and do what needs to be done to take care of the children.

I’m reminded of a poem I read that goes like this, “It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.” Feeding the children, spiritually, emotionally, physically we must feed the least of these. We must wake up tomorrow and try to explain to the younger generation how someone could commit such a crime

The reality of life is that we will face death. Where is the hope in that? Today let me provide you with this answer. Today, if you have children, hug them, offer them hope, if you have grandchildren, offer them a kiss and a smile. If you have a next-door neighbor who is young go visit them and their family. Remember that our job today and in the days to come is not to rationalize the actions of mentally unstable person, but to do what it takes to change the world.

If you do go to a church or synagogue or mosque pray that peace might take its place at the table of our world. If you don’t go to a place of worship pause for a moment and hope for a better, more stable world. As we approach the Christmas holiday let us be mindful of those families in Newtown who will not have a Christmas that will ever be the same. In a town that is not much bigger than Statesville let us be thankful for the teachers in our communities, the children in our lives. Let us offer them hope; let us offer each other hope. Not a hope that will go away in a few weeks after this tragedy is committed to history. Let us show that today is the day we decided, that hope is real and peace is imperative.

The Easter of Christmas

            Around this time as our hearts and minds turn to Christmas, the last thing on our minds is Easter. My mom and I recently had a conversation on whether it was theologically correct to wear a cross around your neck around this time, the symbol of Christ’s crucifixion, and even further, should a church celebrate communion, the recalling of the last supper Jesus shared with his disciples. Should a church recall these stories during this season? Should we concentrate on the resurrection instead of the incarnation?

            I want to approach this the same way I approach Jesus’ divinity and humanity. If you walk into most church’s you will notice there are an even number of candles. One tradition suggests that this was because it proclaimed that Jesus was both fully human, and fully divine. Fully equal in his Godliness and human nature, as you can well imagine this whole understanding has caused countless gallons of ink to be spilled by theologians with their own unique perspective on things.

            We who claim the name of Christ live in a faith of juxtapositions; we believe that the incarnation and resurrection are equally important. We understand that Advent and Lent both lead to something magnificent, whether that is through the birth of a baby or the death of someone who didn’t deserve to die. Both convey different emotions but both show the reality of God’s loving grace in our lives.

            I was in Statesville this past weekend working for Nicholson Funeral Home. It seems this time of year, unfortunately and for whatever reason death is even more real leading up to Christmas. As I was reading scripture at a funeral of a dear family friend, Maxine, I realized that the same Scriptures that were read at her funeral were ones of Advent expectation. Within our deaths we find life, and within our lives we find death. Just like the incarnation and the resurrection they are events that work together, a symbiotic relationship requiring more understanding than we humans have.

            I write this article not in the hopes of articulating a theological concept that many theologians with far more degrees than me have trouble understanding. I write this to get you thinking, how is Christ’s resurrection playing out in your life this Christmas? And conversely as we begin a new year and approach Lent how is the story of Christmas fueling your hope of resurrection?

            We live in a world that we will never understand, and we have a God that we haven’t even scratched the surface when it comes to understanding the Divine. So maybe it’s best to wrestle with those concepts of resurrection vs. incarnation, and eventually find that they weave together a canopy that surrounds and sustains us, that canopy is known as the grace of God. This Christmas if your church is celebrating communion, consider that God is working, creating and restoring the resurrection in your life through the glorious incarnation of Christmas. What better present could we ask for?

A Black Friday Wish

        As many of you are reading this, you are either full of turkey or preparing to go out for Black Friday shopping. My little brother Scott is preparing for something completely different. Scott and the Statesville High School football team will be playing Charlotte Catholic tonight in Hound Hollow. One of my favorite moments of the football game is when Scott walks off the field and often my little cousin will run up to Scott and give him a great big hug. Scott is a celebrity to my cousin and my cousin couldn’t be prouder to call Scott his.

            This Sunday in the church year is known as Christ the King Sunday, when we enthrone Christ on the throne of grace and the throne of our own lives. This important Sunday got me thinking as to how we might put Christ on the throne of our existence and very being.

            All of us begin today shopping, buying and giving gifts to people. More often than not we forget that many people are destined to a blue Christmas. Many people this season leading up to Christmas won’t have a place to call home, whether that is because of a struggling economy on the home front or the occupation in Gaza abroad. What might we give this season leading up to Christmas that has lasting meaning and a beautiful reality?

            Friends this week be my like my brother Scott after those long football games. I know that Scott and the entire team are worn out and tired from the game, but Scott still takes time to make my cousin Peyton feel like a celebrity, not with lavish gifts of material means, but with a gift of embrace. What if this Christ the King Sunday we made someone feel like a celebrity with a kind affirmation or gesture? What might our world look like then?

            The God of love is present in our lives this season more than ever. God incarnate is on his way, what might we do to prepare for that? It could be anything from cooking a home cooked meal to praying for peace in the Gaza strip. Our world is broad and wide and there is so much we can do to bring God incarnate here and now.

            Tonight I will be cheering for my brother, proud because of the person he has grown up to be, not only on the football field but when it comes to the interaction of people that sometimes go unnoticed.  This Christ the King Sunday, how will you enthrone the King of creation in your heart? May we all find new ways to say here I am Lord, use me.

Shaken, Not Stirred?

               I recently returned from a trip to Washington DC, the center

of the free world for an opportunity like none other. I met with a group of multi-denominational leaders in an effort to shed light on a social issues dear to my heart. In our free time, I asked each and every one from the Dean of the National Cathedral to a pastor in a Baptist Church in the heart of Chinatown DC if the church would be viable in the future.

               Often there answer was more theologically complex, but the

Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington's answer was simple, yes, with one caveat, the church will either succeed or it will fail she said, it's simple and complex at the same time. That question rang true throughout my journey in DC, is the church of today viable for tomorrow?

               The new James Bond film, Skyfall is out in theaters right now. In it, the famed 007 and his boss 'M' must confront issues that are apparent within the agency for which James Bond is a part of, MI6. As the future is thrust upon the agency, 'M' is called to testify within the chambers of Parliament to declare that the aging agency is still viable in the future. During that climactic scene, 'M' recites a portion of a poem by Alfred Tennyson, "Though much is taken, much abides; we are not now that strength which in old days moved Heaven and Earth; that which we are we are, we are one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek to find, and not to yield."

               That poem is a poem every church should recite like we do with the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds. Though much is taken, though church attendance is on the decline, though we aren't the strength we once were, the church is viable in the future. The church must and can survive, we cannot fail, the stakes too great, the price too high for us to fail.

               Friends this is a pivotal moment in church history, like

Augustine, Francis, Wesley, Bonheoffer and the like we stand on the brink of church apathy and irrelevance. What is our mission? What is our ministry? We as a church are caught up in squabbling over issues that miss the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ. We must move forward celebrating the past and anticipating God's future. God will bring about God's reign with or without us, but when our time is committed to history, I want to be on the side of God's justice, reign and love. I want to be one of the ones who has been strong to seek, to find and not to yield. People of faith, will you join me?