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One Christmas when I was a local church pastor, I was giving the children’s sermon. I sat on the steps leading up to the altar and asked the children to gather around me. “What is the difference between Jesus and Santa Claus?” I asked.
It is the faith of Christians, and my own faith, that God became flesh in the child Jesus, born of Mary. It is an astonishing claim, often given lip-service, especially at this time of year, but very rarely known for the profound paradox it is.
My faith instructs me, in the words of Jesus, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart” and “love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-31) These together are called the Great Commandment. Jesus didn’t make any exceptions about who is my neighbor, and neither do I.
The Rev. Jerry Falwell will be remembered very differently on the religious and political right and on the religious and political left.
The current polarization of American religion and society is a product of the mixing of religion and politics that Jerry Falwell advocated. That is his legacy. If you like that polarization, you will remember Rev. Falwell as a pioneer; if you decry that polarization, you will hope that the country repudiates the mixing of religion and politics that he so typified and that he orchestrated so effectively.
One of our students at Chicago Theological Seminary has an adopted son who is severely handicapped. This young man has only been able to learn to say two words. I sat beside him at the spring picnic and discovered that the two words he says can carry him a long way in a conversation. His two words are “what’s next?”
“War is hell,” said General William Tecumseh Sherman. Hell can be defined simply as the furthest away you can get from what is good and right, the furthest away you can get from God. War, therefore, is the antithesis of God’s will for humanity. God’s will is that we take care of one another and the creation. War, by contrast, is the organized destruction of human beings and the deliberate infliction of damage to their land, their homes, their communities and all that they hold dear.
There’s a reason children drive their parents crazy with question after question. Why is the sky blue? Why can’t I see air? Are we there yet? Where does God live? Children question everything because their brains are still growing. Questions grow the brain. Questions tingle the nerve endings, plump up the cells and cause lively connections to jump from one area of the brain to the other. Questions are better than Sudoku for keeping your brain (and your faith) alive and ticking.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)
When I was confirmed in the Lutheran Church at age 13, the pastor had us each pick a verse of scripture that we wanted to guide our lives. I chose “Blessed are the peacemakers.” I have really tried to live by that teaching and it is ironic that the duty of the disciple to be a peacemaker ended up being the reason I left the Lutheran Church and joined the United Church of Christ at age 18.
This Thanksgiving you may not be able to end the war in Iraq, bring about reconciliation among the world’s religions or solve ethnic strife, but you can definitely get yourself down to the local homeless shelter and feed somebody. The best way to give thanks on Thanksgiving is to give of yourself.
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