What are the favorite stories you tell yourself about February? Do they include dreary, bitterly cold days with you trying to get warm after a seemingly endless wait for a bus? Do they offer adventures on the slopes with a strikingly soft powder under your skis and vistas of amazing grandeur? Are they full of ice dams on the roof or ice sculptures in Copley Square? Notice with gentle interest and curiosity which ones you dwell with, repeat again and again, or try to avoid.
Theology is always a ‘second act.’ That is to say, our understanding of theology and then our articulation of theological concepts and motifs (creeds, affirmations and the like), always come second. Most, but certainly not all, theologians and pastors would agree. Our theological formulations need to be updated, revised and perhaps sometimes even set aside as we continue to engage in the ‘first act.’ At best, they are human constructs of what others have believed in past days; albeit often very insightful. But even they are based on the experiences of those who engaged the ‘first act.’
January 6 is the festival of Epiphany in the Christian calendar. Epiphany is defined as “manifestation, disclosure, or revelation.” It is a moment in which we see or understand something in a new way. Traditionally, January 6 is celebrated as the day the Magi arrived to visit Jesus, symbolically marking the revelation of a new order for the whole world. As the light continues to grow with each passing day for those of us in the northern hemisphere, we are invited to reflect upon ways that the Spirit is revealing an unfolding light and new growth in our own lives, day by day.
It’s almost here. Sometimes one can hardly sense ‘the coming’ amidst the clamor of the season. It is really countercultural. In the midst of the busyness of our lives and the obscurity of the occasion back then, a new born babe! The poet, Ann Weems, in her poem, The Birth, suggests that “God did not pitch a tent among us in an extraordinary way.” It was a new baby whose ‘crowning’ was a great joy to Mary and Joseph. Perhaps Joseph helped cut the cord. Mary suckled him at her breast and wrapped him in a simple cloth.
The season of Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas. It is a time in which we are invited to live into the anticipation and preparation for the coming of the One who turns our world upside down, who offers us a new perspective on life, a new way of being. Traditionally it was a deeply spiritual time in which the soul longed and waited for God’s coming into the world. Often for us, in our 21st century world, it is a time of frenzy, hurry, and unrealistic expectation of others and ourselves.
Dear Old South Church:
In his book, Learning to Dream Again: Rediscovering the Heart of God, Samuel Wells (no relation!) has a chapter in which he deals with two very important questions. He raises these questions in the broad context of the Book of Genesis and some of the relationships that are presented in those mythic accounts. In fact, it is not he who raises them; the texts themselves raise them.
Our Pilgrim forebears began the American tradition of Thanksgiving just as wind-swept leaves fell relentlessly all around them, the frigid morning air demanded a fire in the hearth and a woolen outer garment, and the encroaching shadows asked candles be lit to push back the late afternoon darkness. Yet in this seemingly harsh new world, they offered the “first fruits” of their little harvest to God with gratitude and hospitality.
No organization—and no church—will survive over the long term if it fails to make adjustments at critical junctures. The average life-span of a church in the US is 75 years. You beat those odds by being smart and strategic, by focusing like a laser on your mission, anticipating problems, making tactical adjustments at the right moments and, if you are a church, by listening to and heeding the voice of our Still Speaking God.
In 2012 Old South Church arrived at just such a critical juncture.
As I write this article, I am preparing to board a plane for South Dakota, where I have been invited to preach at the 50th Anniversary of the Scotland United Church of Christ. This church was built in 1963, formed from the merger of three German Congregational churches and an Evangelical and Reformed church in and around the small town of Scotland, South Dakota, my ancestral home.