A War On What Christmas Has Become? Sign This Minister Up - Reverend Mark Sandlin

The Christmas story has been hijacked by the dominant culture. Our current story has become increasingly white-washed and sanitized.

The baby we remember this time of year was not part of the dominant culture (unlike us). The religious stories told in the time of Jesus' birth were told under the shadow of the dominant culture. They were stories of oppression and hardships; stories of hope for people living in times and cultural positions that felt hopeless.

Today, our stories are told from places and positions of power. So, instead of the story of a Middle-Eastern, unwed, pregnant woman who was seen as little more than property, giving birth to what her society would see as an illegitimate child who was placed in a smelly feeding-trough in an animal stall, we end up with a clean White Anglo Saxon Protestant woman giving birth to a glowing baby wrapped in impossibly white cloths and laid in a manger that looks more like a crib than any feeding-trough.

The Christmas story has been hijacked by the dominant culture. Our current story has become increasingly white-washed and sanitized. That has warped the comeuppance sensibilities of the original Christmas story. God's vision of liberating the oppressed and downtrodden has been air-brushed into a safe story that no longer brings fear to the Powers that Be, but rather supports big business agendas of profit and mass consumerism.

Does the story we tell bring light into darkness? Does it bring hope to hopeless? Does our celebration bring justice to those who have been treated unjustly?

Jesus' birth is a part of a story meant to teach us something about the value of every human soul; meant to teach us that "the least of these" is simply a human construct; meant to show us what life looks like when it starts from the assumption that all people are worthy of love.

So if there is a War on Christmas like many of the "not-least of these" claim, then sign me up. I refuse to let the story of my faith be co-opted by corporate interests who want us to believe we are entitled to a certain materialistic status that can be bought and that we should revel in our obscene abundance even as we celebrate the birth of a child who had no place to lay his head and told us "just as you do it unto the least of these, you do unto me."

In the 1st World, our abundance which is carried on and carved out of the backs of the 2nd and 3rd World. This corporate global dominance is enabled by an economic and cultural empire that dwarfs the Romans. 

The full article is available here

Giving Thanks As A Life Changing Dynamic - Fred Plumer

Living with thankfulness is not just about things that we have acquired or have been given. 

Living with thankfulness is not just about things that we have acquired or have been given. It is not even about good things that have happened. Being in-thankfulness is a way of living. It is a way of being aware. It is a way of being conscious. It is a way of discovering a new perspective; a new reality.

We are often one-dimensional in our thinking. We tend to think in terms of the material. We become score keepers for life based on things we think of as measurable. When we are thankful it is usually for things and events when we get what we thought we wanted.

This way of being ignores the multi-dimensions of existence, those things that bring us a more fulfilling happiness if we are open to them; i.e. beauty, grace, love, growth, connection. All too often, I suspect we pay less attention to what is happening in our relationships, to our souls, in the very essence or the beauty of all that is around us and within us than we do to our financial balance sheet. We concern ourselves far too much with how we are matching up with others.

The 2nd thing this kind of thinking ignores is that every day provides an abundance of lessons for life; every day can be a teacher. Let’s face it. Most of us know that some of our most painful experiences provide our greatest and often most profound lessons. We don’t necessarily choose to go through them but we can decide to learn what we can from them with a faith that says, someday I will look back on this and realize that there was an incredible gift in this experience.

The full article is available here

Shalom-Seeking - Kate Kooyman in Do Justice!

Our deeply-felt callings look different in their details, but look the same in their essence: That all may have life, and have it abundantly.

While the image for justice in our culture is a set of scales, the image for justice in Scripture is a river (Amos 5:24). A broad, flowing, living, rolling, sustaining, beautiful river. This river, I believe, is all about abundance.

I want there to be an abundance of compassion in life. I don’t want our hearts to be divided, I want our hearts to grow. I want to make things more alive. I want the church to be pro-life -- pro-abundant life.

Our deeply-felt callings look different in their details, but look the same in their essence: That all may have life, and have it abundantly.

We can more deeply invest in the issue that we believe in passionately when we come to understand and value other people's issues. Because drones have to do with immigration, which has to do with prisoners, which has to do with education, which has to do with racism, which has to do with abortion, which has to do with poverty, which has to do with housing.

These issues are all interconnected, and they all deeply affect people’s ability to flourish in community--which is to say, that they’re all about shalom.

I think to be pro-life today means embracing this ethic of abundance -- that there’s no person for whom God does not desire an abundant life. It is up to each of us to contribute to that vision of a wild, rolling, life-giving river of justice.

The full article is available here

Jesus Was A Refugee From Terrorism

Here we see some non-Christian refugees fleeing terrorism's slaughter. #JesusWasARefugee

Benediction: Lives of Gratitude & Service (based on Lamentations 3:24)

May the grace of God, the love of Jesus, and the presence of God's Spirit strengthen and encourage us as we go out from here to lead lives of gratitude and service.

What We Do Proclaims Christ - Henri J Nouwen

Care For The Poor - Henri J Nouwen

Going To The Margins - Henri J Nouwen