In the spirit of Mary’s song (Luke 1:46-55) describing the impact of God’s arrival in the world through the baby forming within her, Pastor Ray wrote his own version of the Magnificat, describing what he hopes the world will look like when the Kingdom of God comes in fullness.

This is Advent—not a sad event.

It’s time to reflect—time to believe.

So don’t be anxious; do not grieve.

God is with us; the world is changed.

Everything is being rearranged.

Politicians with grand aspirations

are subject to the Lord of the nations.

The Judge of judges decides the fate

Of those who torture and incarcerate.

Guns and drones are null and void;

Generals are among the unemployed.

The filthy rich are sent to the shower;

The poor have equal earning power.

Living wages are the law of the land.

No more accounting slight of hand;

The 1 Percent have to pay.

Finally, the rest of us have time to play.

Titans of industry intent on profit

No longer control the economic market

Oil barons, fracking gas,

Are brought to their knees and kicked in the ass.

I hear the sigh of all creation

celebrating the end of subjugation.

The powerful are dissed;

The classes are dismissed.

Every color is embraced;

Every difference equally graced.

Glass ceilings are shattered;

no women and children battered;

Violence is rejected,

the vulnerable protected.

There is shouting in the streets,

and dancing to the beats

Hands are raised, but not in fear.

The kingdom reign of Christ is near!

Hands up! Praise the Lord!

Stand Up! Spread the word!

Sing the chorus;

God is for us!

Laugh and move your feet and say:

This is the beginning of God’s new day.

I’ve been reading the laments of Scripture–expressions of grief over  how the wicked flourish and act with impunity, how the poor are crushed, how the world is broken down.  One weary lament has resonated with me during this season:  “How long, O Lord?  How long?”  Advent is a time of preparation for the arrival of the kingdom of heaven.  It is a season of waiting and wanting.  We long for and (in the words of Charles Wesley) pine for the day when our exile will be over and God will intervene to make all things new.  When I hear the news of war, when I watch the clashes on our streets, while I feel the sting of death, I want to cry out, “How long, O Lord?  How long?”

I have also found myself praying the Lord’s prayer frequently.  According to the early church discipleship manual, the Didache, believers were expected to repeat this prayer three times daily.  I’m already up to four times and it is only 11:00 am.  I keep repeating the phrases, “Your kingdom come; your will be on on earth as in heaven” and “deliver us from evil.”  Yesterday, we prayed in the middle of Fullerton Avenue as we marched: “Your kingdom come; your will be done in the 14th Police District, throughout Chicago, throughout the suburbs, in Ferguson, MO, in New York City, on earth as in heaven.”  We prayed: “Deliver us from evil ‘cuz black lives matter, latino lives matter, all lives matter.”  We cried out in the midst of our wilderness.

I find great hope in God’s word to Moses at the burning bush, “I have seen the misery of my people; I have heard their crying out; I am concerned about their suffering.  So I have come down to rescue them.”  God sees; God hears; God rescues!  God sent a deliverer–Jesus.  And Jesus sends us.  “As the father has sent me, so I am sending you.”  So we cry out–not in despair, but in great hope and deep faith and persevering love–“The Kingdom of heaven is coming!”

O God, Yours is the kingdom.  Yours is the power.  Yours is the glory, forever and ever!  Amen!

And so begins Charles Dickens’ tale, A CHRISTMAS CAROL. I have a confession to make.  I’ve seen the play and I’ve watched the 1951 Alistair Sim movie version and (dare I say) the Mr. Magoo cartoon version, but I’ve never read the book.  Until this year. I understand why the beloved story of transformation has become such an embedded part of the Christmas tradition.  However, during my reading, I realized that our depictions of Scrooge’s transformation from a hard-hearted, greedy miser to a joyful, generous philanthropist on Christmas morning are quite shallow.  By keeping the story safely contained in the nostalgia of the Christmas season, we can keep it from truly confronting our own hard-hearted greed.

The parallels between Dickens’ 1840’s London and our own time are striking.  Scrooge was a part of the 1% of his day.  While the few at the top thrived, everyone else just barely survived.  The wealthy elite viewed the unproductive as “surplus population” that needed to be decreased–if by disease or disaster, so be it.  The poor, the jobless and the homeless were a drain on resources.  The solution?  Criminalize and incarcerate.  Sound familiar?

The transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge is profound.  He wakes up on Christmas morning not merely happy that he is alive nor with some vague resolution to be nicer to others in the new year.  Through his encounter with the three spirits, he understands the ways in which his classism and narcissism–and the structures of social order–have brought great harm to others.  His transformation is not about becoming more kind, but about becoming more just.  His actions go beyond merely giving a goose to a poor family for Christmas dinner or giving his employee a small Christmas bonus.  His actions are radical.  He gives Bob Cratchet a living wage.  He arranges for family healthcare.  He redistributes his wealth.  He seeks the common good.  We see more than just an attitude adjustment; we see true repentance.  Now humbled, we watch a liberated Scrooge actively participate in the creation of a new community where everyone’s needs are met and everyone shares in the abundance–not just at Christmas, but throughout the year.

I suspect that Dickens wanted to challenge the status quo and suggest that Christmas has the power to transform us–a process which begins with honest reflection and repentance and ends with our becoming a Beloved Community.  This is the transformation we need.  This season, I pray, “Come, Holy Christmas Spirit, and confront us all with who we are and what we will become apart from being filled anew with love for our neighbor–a love that does justice, loves mercy and walks humbly.”

Thoughts from Bruce Ray, Pastor

All Saint’s Day is coming in just a few days and I have challenged my congregation to tell stories of saints that have impacted their lives or who inspire them.  I want to identify several of my spiritual heroes.

My Hero Saints

I’ve always been drawn to stories of courageous people who stand up for what is right no matter what the consequences and of people who do unexpected things that challenge the status quo and even change the course of history. These are a few of my spiritual heroes:

I am inspired by Elijah P. Lovejoy, a Presbyterian who refused to be intimidated by pro-slavery mobs and continued to publish abolitionist materials in Alton, IL—action that ultimately led to his murder in 1837. His murder galvanized the anti-slavery movement in the north.

I am inspired by Mary McLeod Bethune, a Methodist who defied Jim Crow Laws, teaching people how to pass literacy tests and going door to door to collect money to help people pay poll taxes so they could vote. Because of her activities, the Ku Klux Klan threatened to burn down the school she had established for African American girls.  She stood her ground.

I am inspired by Trevor Huddleston, the Anglican priest who fought South African apartheid. Without him, it is unlikely that there would have been a Bishop Desmond Tutu. Bishop Tutu first met Huddleston on the street as a nine-year-old boy.  It was expected that black children and adults would step into the gutter to allow white people to pass by. Before Desmond and his mother could step off the sidewalk, Huddleston, a white man, stepped into the gutter and tipped his hat to them as they passed. Bishop Tutu identified the experience as the defining moment of his life. He decided at that moment that he wanted to be a “man of God” and an Anglican priest. Of course, Tutu went on to become one of the most outspoken leaders of the anti-apartheid movement.

I am challenged by their courage and determination and I thank God for their refusal to live by the dictates of their cultures, and I aspire to follow in their example. Because of them, the light of Christ shines more brightly than ever.

I hear this all the time.  You probably have too.  “If there really is a God, then why doesn’t God stop the murder of little children, and starvation, and the rape of the environment and the ebola outbreak.  And, damn it, why doesn’t God eliminate toenail fungus while he’s at it?” 

The world is a #&%@ mess and God doesn’t seem to notice or care.  The idea of a loving God seems ludicrous and cruel.  Then, last Sunday, we read this passage from Exodus 3:  “Then the Lord said (to Moses), “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the nations. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt.”  

It hit me.  The problem is not God.  The problem is us.  God sees the suffering, the misery, the oppression and God hears the cries.  God sees and hears what we see and hear.  And God is deeply touched and moved by what God sees and hears.  Unfortunately, we are often untouched and unmoved.  Instead, we identify the problems and then put all the responsibility of fixing the world on God as if God is the cosmic maid–cleaning up the mess.  God IS ready to fix the mess.  “I have come down to deliver,” God says to Moses.  But God then calls Moses to join God in the process of bringing about justice in the world–justice that will bring deliverance.   God expects us (as God’s representatives) to do God’s action in the world.  We cannot divorce ourselves from the solution.  No, if we want things to be different–to be made right–then we need to come out of hiding and engage the powers that are creating the nightmare of injustice.  God calls us to boldly go to the source of the oppression, suffering and misery–to Pharaoh.  And it’s not like we are on our own.  We go in the power and presence of God, I AM.  

Moses was faced with a choice: Join God on God’s mission or stay in Midian (comfortable and safe and detached).  We too are faced with the choice.  But only one option will change the world with God.

“On this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” This statement of Jesus assumes something that I had never considered. The church is meant to be on the offensive. “Gates” are not offensive, but defensive. The gates of hell prevail when there is no force that threatens it. The assumption is that the church is on the advance and knocking down the gates. The church is on a mission to take over hell for heaven. Whenever and wherever hell unleashes its destructive force, the church is there to counter it and overcome it by the authority of Christ. Injustice, violence, abuse of power, oppression are all exposed and overcome in Jesus’ name.

It seems that the church hasn’t gotten the message. The church frequently is either unengaged (that’s not our mission) or in retreat (let’s hold on to what we can). If the church is engaged, it often uses the offensive weapon of prayer. While this is appropriate, prayer must lead to action that coordinates with God’s purposes and plans. The church has often been criticized for hiding inside their buildings and staying safe while the world burns. This is not the church Jesus envisions. An unengaged church is an irrelevant church; a retreating church is a pointless church. The church Jesus envisions is a church that makes the gates of hell tremble; a church that moves to bring light and love to the places of deep darkness and hatred.

This is not a time for timidity. This is not a time for retreat. The poor are crying out for deliverance. The marginalized are crying out for justice. The captive are crying out for freedom. It is time for the church to march straight to hell.