The Scandal of Christmas

Christmas is a scandal.  

We may have shined it up, but that first Christmas was nothing like we pretend.  

We've made the manger look pretty and we added lots of twinkling lights and shiny decorations.   But in all of our celebrations we should never forget the scandal.

In Matthew we learn that Jesus descended from Rahab a prostitute, enemy, and foreigner who hid Israelite spies in the city of Jericho.  Ruth, who was a widow and a foreigner from Moab.  King David and Uriah’s wife (Bathsheba), who were adulterers.  David was also a philanderer and a murderer.  Manasseh, who was the worst king Israel ever had.  According to the Old Testament, Manasseh committed “detestable sins”, and was “…more evil than the Ammonites.”  And then of course there was Mary and Joseph who were just flat-out poor.

From the story of Mary and Joseph we learn that Jesus was sent to save his people from their sins.  He was to be called Emmanuel, “God with us.” This reminds us that we are not alone.  God has entered this world and lives among us. 

We remember that shepherds were the outsiders and the outcasts.  They smelled bad. They touched dead animals and were often ceremonially unclean.  They were very near the bottom of the social order.  And yet, God chooses to announce the arrival of his son, the son of the King of the Universe, to them rather than to kings or priests.

And then Simeon prophesied that Jesus, the promised Messiah of the Jews, had been sent by God as a light to the Gentiles.  Imagine that.  Israel's Messiah, for whom the Jews had waited for hundreds of years, had been sent to save the the non-Jews, the people who were outsiders.

Finally, John the Baptist proclaimed that Jesus was the creator of the Universe who became God in human flesh.  Jesus was the light that gives light to everyone.

Jesus came and made his dwelling place among humans, he came to live among us, as one of us.  John’s whole purpose was to reveal Jesus so that all might believe.

This is the great scandal of Christmas.

Centuries before the arrival of Jesus, God was writing a story that invited and welcomed outsiders, outcasts, foreigners, foul-ups, criminals, and sinners.   

Everybody that society looked down on, God invited in.   

Everybody who thought they weren’t good enough, or rich enough, or who just thought that they weren’t enough, Jesus came to open the door and pay the price so that everyone could come into his father’s house.

The savior of the world was not born in the capitol city.  The king of the universe was not welcomed by the powerful and the important.  

The rich, the royalty, and the politically powerful weren't even invited.

The Christmas story is filled with the rejects, outcasts, outsiders, screw-ups, foreigners, and everyone that the rich, powerful, popular (and even regular people) loved to hate.

The story of Christmas is about redemption and transformation.  It is a story of outsiders being invited in, a story of poor people becoming parents to a king, a story of the outcasts hearing the good news long before the rich, the powerful and the popular.

The story of Christmas is an invitation.  

All of us who thought that we weren’t good enough, or rich enough, or too messed up, or too sinful, or whatever.  All of us have been invited in.  Jesus announced to the world that God has set a place at the table for everyone.

As we begin a new year, remember that no one is too far from God to be invited in.  

Look around.

Who are the people that are looked down upon, unpopular, poor, despised, outcast, or ignored?  

The Christmas story invites them too.

That's the scandal.

Every one of us, no matter who we are, and no matter what we have done, has a place at the table.

Even me.

Even you.

Without the scandal, there is no Christmas.

We are called to be like the shepherds, and Simeon, and Anna, and John the Apostle, and John the Baptist, and the angels, and everyone else in this story, Let us go out into the world and share the good news of Jesus, the light of the world, so all might believe. 

Even the outcasts.

Especially, the outcasts.

 

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Two Lies Christians Believe

    As a pastor and as a lay person I have seen too many Christians believe at least one of two lies.  Both of are easy to believe.  We believe them because we lack self-esteem or because we want to be excused from God’s service, but neither are even remotely supported by scripture.  These lies are so similar that it is difficult to separate them. 

Lie #1: God can’t love me.

    Too many of us believe that we are too old, or too young, or too damaged, or so inferior, that even God can’t make something of us.  But the stories that we read in the Bible tell us about people with flaws.  The men and women in God’s story were loved by God despite their imperfections and none of them were perfect.  But God called them just the same. 

    After the flood, one of the very first things that Noah did was to plant a vineyard, make wine, get drunk, and pass out.  But God still loved him.

    King David is described as a man after God’s own heart, but cheated on his wife, took another man’s wife, and then had that man killed to cover it up.

    Abraham told the Pharaoh that his wife was really his sister because he was afraid that the Pharaoh would kill him and steal his wife.  Abraham was a coward who, despite his faith, didn’t trust that God could protect him.  God loved him anyway.

    Solomon loved women and pleasure too much.  Despite God’s warnings, Solomon takes hundreds of wives and concubines and allows himself every pleasure under the sun, but Solomon’s wives turned his heart away from God and Nehemiah says that Solomon sinned by doing these things.  But God still loved him.

    The Pharisees had rules about who good people ought to associate with and which people good folks should stay away from.  But Jesus ignored those rules.  Jesus made friends with, and spent time with prostitutes, tax collectors, Roman soldiers, and outcasts that society hated.

There is simply nothing you can do that can make you unlovable.

    What’s more, many of these damaged people became heroes and champions of God’s story.

Lie #2: God can’t use me.

    Joseph and David were the younger brothers in a culture that placed honor and value on the oldest brothers.  No one really expected the younger brothers to amount to anything, but God called these men to rescue nations.

    Likewise, Gideon was from a small family, from a small town, from a small tribe that wasn’t known for much.  No one expected anything more than mediocrity but God called Gideon to drive out an occupying army and save his people.

    Jesus’ friends were tax collectors who collaborated with the Roman government, fishermen who were thought of as country hicks, prostitutes, outcast, and crazy militia guys (zealots) who took up arms against their government, .

    Jesus said that a Roman Centurion had more faith than anyone in Israel.

    In the Easter story, the first people who first saw the empty tomb, who first saw Jesus, and who were sent as messengers to tell the disciples were Mary Magdalene and the other Mary.  But women weren’t legally reliable witnesses.  Under Roman law, slaves could give testimony in court (if they were tortured) but women could not.  Women were considered to be prone to hysteria and fits of emotion.  Even a group of women were considered to be unreliable.  And yet, who does Jesus send as the first messengers and witnesses?  Women.

    No matter who you are, no matter what you have done, no matter what you have been through…

God can still use you.

Top Ten 2012 Blog Posts

    As promised, here are my top ten blog posts of 2012.  There are a few interesting points that I will note along the way, but among these is just the growth of this blog.  While it is still pitifully small compared to some of the mainstream “big name” bloggers with tens of thousands of subscribers (I have five), there is a marked difference between 2011 and 2012.  In the last year, the number of readers has grown enough that of all the posts included in last year’s list, only the number one post from 2011 would have made this list and even then at number eight. Hey, while you're here, why don't you click on the "Subscribe to Blog Updates" link in the right hand column?

    In any case, the readership of this blog, however small, has doubled in one year, and for that, I am both humble and grateful.  I hope that my musings make you think, regardless of whether we agree or not.  This year’s list is reversed, David Letterman style, with number ten presented first, so that you have to scan the whole list to see the most popular.

10) As was the case in other multi-part blogs I have written, “Part 2, Politicians, Rape and Bad Theology”, was less popular than Part 1 (which comes in at number 7).

9) In, “Is It Time to End Spousal Benefits?” I pondered the injustices of the way that many employee benefits as well as Social Security and other Federal benefits are calculated.  Several comments showed me that that my thinking was not as clear as I would have liked and made me think that I may need to think this through a bit more and revisit the subject sometime down the road.

8) “Why I Stand With the Catholic Church” discusses why I agree that our federal government is overreaching in its demand that church agencies be compelled to pay for contraception and abortion inducing drugs despite in a clear violation of their religious beliefs.

7) Politicians, Rape and Bad Theology (Part 1) is the first, and most popular, of my reaction to some seriously dumb things that were said by politicians.  Honestly, I sometimes think that this happens every day, but when these same politicians begin to justify their dumb stuff by saying that it’s God’s fault, I have to say something.

6) In John Wesley's Crazy Rules?, I list the rules that the early Methodists had agreed to live by.  Today, most all have been abandoned and most church members would panic if we even suggested bringing them back.  On the other hand, under these rules the church grew and under ours we’re shrinking.  Perhaps something in this list we ought to learn from?

5) Why is Homosexuality an Argument Instead of a Discussion? Isn’t even my blog post, but a link to a post by Dr. John Byron, one of my seminary professors.  Here we wonder why everyone wants to demonstrate and shout from their polarized positions, but not have an honest discussion about the issues.

4) The blog entitled, “Just How Many Homosexuals Are There?” was taken, by some, as a political post even though I made some effort to deliberately distance myself from making any overt political statements.  The unfortunate truth, as we’ve seen in other posts, is that anything regarding abortion, homosexuality and a few other topics automatically become argumentative instead of the opening of a discussion.  Here, I simply found statistics that indicated that nearly everyone has a dramatically wrong idea of what we are talking about whenever we begin such an argument.

3) What’s the Big Deal About Sex? was written after it was discovered that several Secret Service agents and military personnel had been cavorting with prostitutes during a trip in which they were to be guarding President Obama.  While what they did was immoral, I wonder why all the fuss?  These folks aren’t monks?  Clearly there are national security concerns, but otherwise, in a culture that values sex and money above all else, what do you expect?

2) Censorship is never the answer.  The beauty of our freedom of speech here in the United States is that it allows atheists to blaspheme my religion and my God, but it also allows me to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.  In Christians are Wrong; Atheists are Right I argue that when Christians lobby for censorship to protect them, they really undermine the most important protection of all.

1) This is the one that makes me smile.  I first wrote, Ahimaaz - Patron Saint of Cross Country Running? , about a man known to King David who loved to run.  When it was written, almost no one read it.  For months afterward… almost no one read it.  And then something interesting happened.  Because I suggested that Ahimaaz ought to be a patron saint of long distance runners (clearly, being Methodist, I have no inside track on this), this blog started to turn up in Internet searches for patron saint of cross country and track.  As track season came closer it began to get a few, but regular, hits each week.  By the end of the year, just like the story of the tortoise and the hare, slowly but surely, this blog had become the most popular of the year (and continues to grow).

Sometimes Right is Wrong

    Not long ago my wife, Patti, and I attended a seminar with Dr. Terry Wardle at Ashland Seminary.  During one session Dr. Wardle noted that sometimes the question is not whether something is right or wrong, but whether it is loving or unloving.  This idea struck me and I immediately wrote it in my notebook.  While this may not always be the case, this is a wonderful lens by which we can examine our choices as we live out our faith.  Checking to see if our actions are loving or unloving is a great way to get closer to deciding, “What would Jesus do?” 

   

    Some will object that Jesus was the perfect man and lived his life without sin, and so, he could not have done wrong.  And yet, he did.  During his ministry, Jesus seemed often to be at odds with the Pharisees, men who devoted their lived to following “the rules” and, in fact, devised rules stricter than those contained in the Law so that, by following these ‘new and improved’ rules, they would never, even accidently, violate the Law.  Simply put, the Pharisees made it their business never to break a rule.  They were devoted to living that was always right and never wrong but if this is so, why were they so often at odds with Jesus?

    The Pharisees began to hate Jesus and plot for his humiliation and, ultimately, his destruction when Jesus repeatedly revealed their hypocrisy and the failure of their rules-based morality.  Jesus pointed out that what they had achieved was like white washing a tomb; it looked pretty on the outside bur remained full of corruption on the inside.  The Pharisees were known to tithe from everything they earned, every increase that God granted to them, even to the point of giving ten percent of the growth from their herb gardens and yet some of them had elderly parents whom they allowed to starve.  They justified their actions by saying that all their money was “Corban” or, dedicated to God.  They had followed one rule so vigorously, that they missed the bigger ideas of “love your neighbor” and “honor your father and mother.”  They had done what was “right” but had failed to be loving.  As Jesus saw it, they had missed the point.

    At the same time, the Pharisees attacks against Jesus revolved around what they perceived as his wrongdoing.  Jesus and his followers were rule breakers.  Jesus sat down with sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, outcasts, and ate with them.  No self respecting, rule-following, religious person would be seen socializing, let alone sharing food, with “those people,” and yet, Jesus did.  As Jesus and his followers were walking through a field on the Sabbath, they were hungry and the disciples began to pick heads of grain, rub them between their hands to remove the chaff, and eat them.  The Pharisees asked Jesus why he allowed them to do wrong. Clearly they were harvesting on the Sabbath, and everyone knew that harvesting was work and work was not permitted on the Sabbath.  They made the same accusation against Jesus when he healed a man on the Sabbath.  Since healing was “work,” obviously Jesus had done wrong.  Again, as Jesus saw it, they had missed the point.

    In each case, the Pharisees wanted to follow the rules, to do what was right, but Jesus wasn’t as concerned with right and wrong as he was with being loving.  Jesus believed that the Pharisees had missed the point when following “the rules” caused them to be unloving.

    If we see ourselves in the mirror held up by the Pharisees, we should.  The Pharisees weren’t bad people; they were the church leaders and teachers of their day.  Like the Pharisees, I think sometimes we get so focused on “the rules” that we miss the point.  When people of faith debate issues like homosexuality, abortion, capital punishment and other “religious” issues in the public square we often carve out positions that we believe are “right” and yet, at the same time, fail miserably at being loving.  That doesn’t mean that we have to accept sin, Jesus didn’t, but Jesus found a way to be loving even if it broke a few rules.

    As we enter the public square we must ask ourselves if our arguments are right, but also if they are loving.  Because…

Sometimes, right is wrong.