Advent Re-Lit

Wednesday for me is the longest day, and Thursday starts with a Bible Study group at 7am.  This means I leave the house in darkness this time of year, before my kids leave for the bus stop, all of us before 7am. 

This time of year, it seems like a long of long nights and dark days—literally. 

This week of Advent, the first week, is always the one that seems most poignant.  One flickering candle shining against all the darkness.  One candle.  That’s all. 

13 months ago, as my family and I were relocating to South Arkansas we received the gift of “extra time” when our movers were delayed past our original delivery date.  We spent some of that time in some caverns in western Virginia.  Underground, we were again reminded of the power of one-match-power in an otherwise entirely dark cavern.  In a large underground room, one match lit up everyone’s faces, even in some cases, as much as 30 or 50 feet away from the matchlight! 

I imagine each of us with at least as much power, as we individually seek to follow Jesus.  And as all of us set forth to travel to Bethlehem, to proverbially worship the newborn King, our lights coalesce into one large mass of pilgrimage. 

Advent, re-lit. 

On these dark mornings, I think of that kind of following coming together to change the world. 

What images and ideas are helping you to change the world, these dark days? 

© Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Teaching Elder and Pastor, The First Presbyterian Church of El Dorado, Arkansas

A New Snack and a Slow Turn

Christmas crunch. 

It could be any manner of Christmas snack treat—in my opinion.  But my wife was talking.  And not about snacking. 

“I hate the Christmas crunch—and I can’t even believe those words are coming out of my mouth!” she said in the car as we were driving to my office. 

It might be because this year, Advent is cut to its cheapest number of days.  4 weeks of promised hope smashed down into a few hours more than three.  The “pressure” of the season was getting to her. 

Christmas cards. 

Present wrapping. 

House decorations. 

Scheduling the last of the family activities that “we do every year.” 

She was up against figuring out “how are we going to do all this with one less weekend,” though she didn’t really want to admit it. 

Today, in my advent devotional, Christmas crunch was also redefined. 

“[Christmas] is about change of heart and change of life that are rooted in trust in the promises of God that are as sure as they are slow.” 

And while usually in Advent Christmas’s arrival does seem slow… apparently this year, it’s been sped up. 

Christmas will be here before we know it! 

And oddly, though time is short, I’ve already made plans for services and sermons for the last two weeks of Advent and Christmas Eve.  Plans are coming together.  Items are falling into place.  It feels right, and nice and I’m anxious for the celebrations. 

And though these days seem filled with terrors and perils and bad news cycles; more stories of sexual assaults, or presidential lies and threats, and the promise of finally-passed legislation that holds bad news for the poor and gifts for the rich—there is also this sense that the promised world of Jesus will yet come to be. 

Or as one of my new favorite Advent hymns proclaims:

“My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great, and my spirit sings of the wondrous thing that you bring to the ones who wait.  You fixed your sight on your servant’s plight, and my weakness you did not spurn, so from east to west shall my name be blest.  Could the world be about to turn?  My heart shall sing of the day you bring.  Let the fires of your justice burn.  Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn.” 

Come quickly, Jesus—we are busy! 

So, come quickly, Jesus—lest you run out of time! 

Come quickly, Jesus—because the world is changing! 

 © Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Teaching Elder and Pastor, The First Presbyterian Church of El Dorado, Arkansas

Our World the Dark Place

“Choose for this day to be precious—for there aren’t many of them”—is where I left it yesterday. 

And this morning, news came that someone close to our congregation had attempted suicide.  Again.  Someone who had battled this demon before and seemingly won, even. 

I’m reading a new resource by Walter Brueggemann for Advent.  In fact, I had just been reading this passage when word came: 

“Our world is ‘a dark place’ of fear, anxiety, greed, and violence.  The prophetic light exposes such destructive practices and requires us to consider both the ideological rootage of our practices and their concrete outcomes from which we often benefit.  Advent is a time for being addressed from ‘elsewhere’ and being unsettled.  It is time to ponder exposés that we do not welcome.” 

This week, only one lone candle lights the wreath, and beats back the darkness.  In a world that seems to grow ever-more-dark by the hour, or the minute—one candle hardly seems to hold promise or sway. 

Which may be why Brueggemann’s observations and comments begin with addressing prophetic speech.  Today’s daily lectionary has Jesus in the temple, running out the money-changers. 

I have a few illnesses I’d like to run out today in likewise manner! 

In his prayer, Brueggemann offers, “God of the prophets, who interrupts and makes new beginnings….” 

Maybe, in addition to lighting one lonely candle, we must also offer a word—a prophetic, interruptive word.  A persistent word. 

Come. 

© Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Teaching Elder and Pastor, The First Presbyterian Church of El Dorado, Arkansas

Advent Monday Birthday

It’s the shortest ADVENT we’ll ever have.  Three weeks and a few hours (if you believe that bit my pastor-father always cited on Christmas Eve that “Christmas” begins at 4pm on Christmas Eve because 4pm was the rule by which the vigil could be observed and “count” if you were Catholic).  And by that count, with this year’s Advent starting so late, its almost already been crushed by the world around us whose Christmas-intensity has already burned bright and hot.  Christmas was already 50% off before Thanksgiving!  Black Friday has come and gone and—have you noticed!—even the sales got better post-Black-Friday.  They’re making shelf-space for Valentines Candy.  It’s almost like Christmas is being skipped! 

So, more than usual, I think, every single one of these Advent days this year will be precious! 

Still, I keep reading my newsfeed. 

2 apocalyptic moments: The University of Arkansas is hiring a new football coach (those in power are disappointed when we fail to win the most games; apparently a solid academic program for athletes, a record of good behavior, and being untarnished of NCAA violations is worthless in the face of not having won enough games.  Thus clamors the worldly wisdom that winning at life is not enough winning.)  And of course, we’re finally waiting to hear if the slow legislative season in Washington can be bested by charges of presidential impeachment, for something, sometime, somewhere, somehow—that will quickly spin the world into chaos and turn the 24-hour news cycle into a “breaking news story” that can interrupt network television programming reruns (Hint, there are so many Advent holiday parties that no one is watching anyway!). 

In fact, we all have better things to do. 

Fears about what the new, recently-passed tax proposals might do to some of the poorest people in our nation should not subdue or subvert the reality that RIGHT NOW, so many people are suffering. 

That the football coach is often the highest-paid state employee cannot be allowed to alter our focus from the ministry of the one who comes to challenge lifestyle choices with Kingdom promises (The ones with the most toys do not win!). 

And whatever happens in Washington, D.C. today won’t diminish the news that in our community, a nice, older couple’s home, neighbors to our building superintendent at FPC El Dorado, burned to the ground in the early morning hours this morning. 

THIS Advent Day is also my birthday. 

A gift of a little more transformation, please! 

Let the light and love of Jesus shine on you, in you, through you. 

Light YOUR candle of light and hope (there will be more than enough already on my birthday cake). 

Choose for this day to be precious—for there aren’t many of them. 

3-2-1 Advent

Quiet. 

Silence. 

Waiting. 

Soon there will be bustle and hustle—children arriving, parts-in-hand—for the first worship service of the new season that they are leading. 

Sunshine in my window.  No stirring in the building.  Everything set and ready. 

All those early-Sunday-tasks I thought I would get accomplished with extra time not needed to prepare for today’s service. 

Watching out the window. 

Quietly reading my newsfeed. 

Wondering not “if” I will see Jesus, but “where?” 

The hour will soon arrive. 

The chimes will be struck. 

The Chrismon tree will be lighted. 

The Advent wreath will put forth it’s first candle-glow of the season.  And we will be off. 

A new season. 

A new Sunday. 

A new—“just what is THIS advent bringing?” 

Oh, here they come! 

© Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Teaching Elder and Pastor, The First Presbyterian Church of El Dorado, Arkansas

“Generosity Is Something We Want For You”

This summer our congregation has been slogging through the semi-continuous Old Testament stories in the lectionary each Sunday.  We’ve been reminded frequently and often by the Genesis narratives that God’s promises promise that the story’s characters—and by extension, we believers—are “blessed to be a blessing” for the whole world. 

Therefore, I shouldn’t be surprised that when I returned last week from a nearly three-week vacation, there was a letter waiting for me in my inbox:

“[Dear] Church.” 

Not Dear Pastor, Dear Reverend, Dear David. But: Church, Dear CHURCH.  I know why it landed in MY mailbox (I’m the pastor, all that kind of mail comes to me), but it could have at least acknowledged First Presbyterian or El Dorado or something more identifiable in its greeting. 

“Dear Church, in 2013 you blessed me with a pair of tennis shoes.  …I’m still wearing the shoes you purchased me, the soles are peeling off, I’m asking you, the church, if you’ll bless

me again with a new pair?  They are the same price, $39.87 that’s with taxes.  I’m sorry to ask you for help again, but I’ve no family out there to help me, my mother has passed in 2002, she was divorced she was a Christian as I am.” 

I don’t know why I was hung up on “Dear Church.”

It was a request from the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Corrections—the same place where a couple of months ago death row inmates were being hurriedly executed.  But this wasn’t from a death row inmate, and I immediately wanted our church to be found holding out the light and life of God in a world of brokenness, shrouded by death.  I believe desperately in a gospel of new life, changed lives, forgiveness, and hope. 

I asked around, but no one around our church remembered the previous “blessing” we supposedly offered this man.  And, “…dear Church,” as I shared this with other staff members and others about the request, I got quizzical, puzzled looks, and a lot of doubts.  Frankly, I know well the request could be dubious—there are a bunch of ways such a gift could be used for no good, or nefarious things. 

It was only $39.87—with taxes.  He had guts enough to ask.  And my first response was that I could answer for the Church of Jesus Christ, First Presbyterian, and myself as a Christian.  The traditional knock on helping people in need is that they take your money and use it to buy booze.  I’m pretty sure the ADC doesn’t let inmates buy alcohol.  I thought; here’s a chance to “be a blessing!  Again!” 

David Loeling, who’s heading up a new initiative for the Presbyterian Foundation for effective financial church leadership for local congregations, began a recent blogpost by noting, “Generosity is something we want for you, not from you.”  He then goes on to ask how our churches can form generous disciples in an age when we prefer technical fixes and best practices—where we grasp after new programs to produce results counted in participants and budget figures. 

What’s going to grow our capacity for “blessing others,” isn’t some program by which we can count how much we give and feel good about our pre-determined choices; but rather, the risks and chances we’re willing to take with the love of Jesus.  Like Jesus, our heart is what tells us the right things to do.  Not the program.  Not the conventional wisdom.  Not the carefully crafted ways of giving that seek to protect us from misuse or abuse.  Just the giving. 

A few years ago I was standing in line at the grocery store—my cart full.  There was an elderly lady being checked out, and ahead of me was a middle-aged man, with a quarter-filled cart, obviously pained by having to wait.  The woman came to the point of paying, tried a gift card, but then had to get out cash.  She first waded through her purse, going through several pockets and envelopes and finally, as if in slow-motion, picked the one with her cash in it.  She had to take out several bills, laboring over each and every one, individually, as if saying goodbye to old friends, until she had done enough to cover the tab.  All of this seemed to highly irritate this man who just wanted to be on his way.  I suddenly had this burning desire to pay this man’s grocery bill, just so he could walk away with a blessing rather than his irritation—albeit a spiteful blessing on my part.  And were it not for the fact that I couldn’t figure out how to explain to my wife how I’d just given away a quarter of our grocery budget to a man who didn’t “deserve it” for financial reasons—I might have been bold enough to have done it. 

It’s the same sort of way I felt last week on vacation, waiting with an empty grocery cart to buy some ice for my vacation cooler, waiting behind the young couple buying everything in their cart “on the cheap.”  I’ve learned how to spot the “hard times” stash of frozen pizzas, along with every item in the cart coming from the most generic of generic brands on store shelves.  If you look, you can see the poverty and hunger around us!  The couple had carefully “guessed” the bill, and had just enough cash, emptying their wallets—the last of the money. 

There were a host of reasons not to slide my credit card through the machine before they could exchange the bills with the cashier.  They were kind, polite, good-hearted with each other and with me, while I tried not to pay so close attention to their plight. 

We become generous people when we say “yes” to being a blessing.  Sometimes when we’re asked—but often, especially when we aren’t. 

For me, it’s a work in progress.  And I’m determined to get there. 

© Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Minister of Word and Sacrament,  Pastor, The First Presbyterian Church of El Dorado, Arkansas

"Just a White Man Talking"

My friend and co-moderator of the 222nd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Tawnya Denise Anderson posted on Facebook this morning: 

I'm relying on white folks to talk today. I've simply run out of energy to defend my humanity or point out this country's hypocrisy. Talk amongst yourselves. #tiredAF

OK.  My turn.  

[takes mic]

Hi, I’m David.  I bet I’m not a racist, but…,

My kids have this thing (a lot of kids do, and it’s so famous the Family Circus cartoon has numerous examples).  I’ll ask, “Who left this trash on the coffee table?”  The kids chime in, “Oh, not me.”  And, “Ida know.”  “It must have been (one of the others).” 

And honest to goodness, for most of my life, when faced with blatent racism in the world, in my community, I felt like I could say, full-throatedly—“I didn’t do it.”  And even, “I’m not like that.”  Therefore…, don’t blame me, or especially, “It’s not my fault.” 

Because if only I had been in charge, it would surely have been different.  #probablynot.  #privilegeisthewaterIhavealwayslivedin.  #iamblindtomyownracism. 

I’m a white, American, Protestant, male, six feet seven inches tall and I weigh more than 300 pounds.  I get treated differently, am the recipient of much more grace, the “benefit of the doubt,” and privilege than I deserve or should ever rightfully be entitled to.  While it’s “nice, I believe it’s not right, and when I think about it carefully I really think it sucks.  Honestly, I wish I could share.  My physical size, the color of my skin, my gender, allow me to interact with people differently—my mom says by the 5^th grade teachers were afraid of me because I was sizeably larger than any normal child they’d ever dealt with in the classroom.  #Imabiggun  It took them a while to know and trust that I was a true softie.  And not retarded.  And not held back. 

I am a softie.  Which is often why I don’t have the microphone, and I’m not on the front lines, and I’m usually not the first person to pipe up and say that something’s wrong, or particularly that people are wrong.  I’ve been raised and taught that forgiveness is paramount, that there is hope and new life for everyone in Christ.  Sometimes, “helping someone see the light,” especially when it involves systemic problems and even if it’s only truth-telling, seems like undue influence, or forcing someone to adopt my own views—and maybe I should just keep quiet. 

When I saw the video of Philando Castile, when he was shot, I thought immediately that it was somehow “fake.”  Modern technology, the CGI we love about Star Wars films, allows people with smartphones to doctor images, alter real video, etc. etc. etc.  It. Hardly. Seemed. Real.  But also because, what kind of police officer would do this after all the headlines?  No one would be that stupid. 

But it also did not surprise me that it was real.  And I wept at the unimaginable horror the 4-year-old in the car had witnessed, and the violence that had unfolded in front of my own eyes, knowing these were not characters in a movie but real citizens.  “It could have been me” NEVER passed through my mind.  It couldn’t.  This kind of thing NEVER happens to people like me.  A drive-by shooting, the result of gang-violence, being in the wrong place at the wrong time—but not this. 

And because this kind of thing keeps happening—the last few years being a steady drumbeat of black Americans dying because white American cops shot them to death—I know that something is terribly wrong.  And in truth, somedays I’m tempted to believe that part of the problem needs to be laid at the feet of the training programs we require for our police officers in this day and age when they must be taught threats are everywhere. 

We insist our police and first-responders train for every scenario that it doesn’t take long before they are hair-trigger responders.  Shoot first; ask questions later.  The truth?  Our human brains are simply incapable of being constantly charged with “flight or fight.”  Malcom Gladwell explores this in his book, Blink.  Surely, part of the reason is our insistence that we be kept safe.  But then, in a way that is unserving of our real needs, we overwork and underpay our police and other first responders.  It’s a wonder this doesn’t happen more often! 

And if it did, we should expect that the story would already have been written differently.  The incidents and deaths would involve people of more diverse backgrounds and means. 

But these stories do not.  They are instances of black victims shot by white police officers.  Training, yes.  But somehow we just don’t see the “other” as ourselves. 

And these circumstances and events keep happening because it’s overwhelmingly true that we simply think this is someone else’s fault or responsibility.  We’re caught looking around the room for someone else to have to admit their racism rather than trying to recognize that what is happening is wrong, and we’re in the room, too.  I’m in the room. 

What is happening is wrong. 

While it’s true, white people ARE killed by black police officers—but not at all like this or these kinds of circumstances.  

White people ARE victims of racism—but never like this. 

I’ve never been stopped because something was wrong with my car. 

Not getting to serve on a church committee that reserves a “quota” for minorities is not “reverse racism.” 

I get the benefit of the doubt when I don’t have my I.D. when I go to vote; or when I need to sign papers for a loan, or open a bank account. 

The argument is often, “We’re just trying to keep people safe.  We must remain vigilant.” 

So, at the end of the day, some of us are safe; others of us are not.  The white people stand a better chance, the black and brown people don’t. 

The truth is, this is wrong.  This is all wrong. 

[gives back the microphone] 

It Was Pentecost After All

It was the Day of Pentecost. 

The scripture lessons in worship pointed to the Holy Spirit’s appropriation of human speech in a way in which believers become the mouthpieces of God’s purposes.  Going out.  Telling others.  Communicating the stories of Jesus and God’s kingdom. 

It was no surprise that after worship, during fellowship, several people wanted to testify about their experiences of the Holy Spirit—where people communicated and understood using other, non-native languages.  One person shared how this passage had recently been a topic of conversation within her family; and then there was my other conversation. 

The “tradition” in our congregation is that we don’t talk about politics—at Church.  But occasionally it comes up in one-on-one conversations.  Amongst pentecostal pleasantries, someone commented how inappropriate it seemed for the United States to have ever entered the Paris climate accord, since it turned out to be economically unfair and that the standards the United States agreed to were far more tough on our country than others. 

At least we did it to ourselves. 

But I said I was particularly sad, in response to the news that the President intended the United States to leave the Paris accord,  because as far as I could tell, the United States was relinquishing its leadership on the world stage—which for me, is a preference for sitting in the back of the bus rather than driving it.  My counterpart suggested that at least now, he hoped the agreement might be renegotiated. 

I was thinking of my friend, Bill Davnie (the Stated Clerk for Twin Cities Area Presbytery, and a former foreign service officer in the State Department) who wrote in response to the President’s announcement online: 

Some other ways of looking at withdrawal from the Paris Accords:

1.    An unhappy U.S. inside the Accord, but undermining it in various ways, would complicate its implementation more than our being outside of it. The signatories will likely be able to work more effectively without U.S. whining.
2.     Market forces will continue to support at least some transition to renewable energy in the U.S. Utilities won't be building coal-fired plants when natural gas, wind and solar are better options.
3.     Trump has just complicated any renegotiating of trade agreements he wants to do, because countries can now use greenhouse gas issues against us in negotiations. As we complain about intellectual property rights, say, they will complain about our carbon emissions.
4.     Our abdication of leadership in this area will move the international community in the direction of a broader, multi-polar rebalancing in international relations. The world is moving in this direction anyway, but American politicians either don't see that, or can't talk about in public because it sounds "declinist".
5.     More people know more about the Paris Accords now than a few months ago. That's good.

My friend and conversation counterpart was excited about the end of the agreement on our part, not for any of these reasons, but out of a sense of fairness—that we all share and contribute to the problem of climate change and should share more equally in the burdens of resolving it. 

I was thinking about how I wanted Jesus, or our love of Jesus, to somehow be the answer. 

My friend’s concern was the inherent unfairness of a climate agreement that gave clear advantages to the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, and others, who—he was sure—would continue to pollute in massive amounts having an economic advantage over the

United States.  Indeed, this always smacks of unfairness; it is surely unequal; but MY frustration is that rather than see it as the carrot that helps the world get to a better place, we see it as “woe is us,” or in this case, that we had given away too much economically, politically, and practically by entering an agreement that treated our nation or others, “un-equally.” 

But then, what occurred to me was maybe, just maybe, our willingness to boldly enter into an accord that asked a lot of us as the United States, was ultimately because we dared to believe we ought to be doing as Jesus did.  “If the United States gave too much away at the conference table,” I said, “maybe it’s because we took our allegiance to Jesus seriously and we did the kind of things Jesus would do.” 

I’m not sure at all what I meant.  Feeling for a moment like I had to answer something “reasonable” it’s all I could come up with.  We loved Jesus.  Therefore, we took the shorter straw. 

“It could be,” I said, “that we’re in this kind of place, where we actually see the need to ‘give away advantages at the bargaining table’ that we were called to make ‘bad deals” as the President calls them, because we really do love Jesus.  That sounds like something Jesus would do, and would want us to do, too.” 

This kind of reason rarely makes any practical or “reality” sense—and it connected with my conversation partner in the way you might expect—it was a crazy way to suggest what our national motivations might have been or could have been.  Pigs might be flying in Iowa or hell might be frozen over in Texas, too.  But this does seem to be how the gospel works—when someone makes an economic sacrifice for another’s gain, because that’s the kind of thing Jesus does. 

I know this will not make any sense at all to TV pundits or bureaucrats enacting the President’s “tweets.”  I’m afraid they can’t possibly hope to get it.  Not even after years of therapy and education.  They don’t believe like I do! 

But, the people of Jesus—the whole world over—do get it.  And we should not be deterred in the meantime. 

It was a fleeting moment of clarity. 

It was Pentecost, after all. 

A Shroud for Easter

I’m used to Lent being a hard season.  There are usually, at least extra services on for Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday—but this year, in a new call, a Holy Week brought a community Lenten service each day.  There are often extra Bible Studies or church study groups—chances for the faithful to be all “Lenten” by taking on more than normal rather than just “giving something up.”  This year, there wasn’t a special study for me, but in a new congregation, a weekly Bible Study that I didn’t have a year ago.  And getting to Easter Sunday, with a different rhythm than the past few years was still like a relief valve going off—even though I wasn’t as overworked as many of my clergy colleagues. 

By the time Easter Sunday arrives, you’ve heard enough about death and that the power of sin is death—the Easter news that Christ has conquered death is this announcement of great reprieve. 

So this year, Easter came but death also happened.  Really. 

Holy week brought several people close to my congregation home to the local hospice house.  Another person related to our congregation then died on Good Friday.  So Easter Sunday was followed immediately by funeral planning.  The weekend after Easter in our small South Arkansas town was inundated with a triddum of memorial services sprinkled around Sunday morning worship—Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. 

And it wasn’t just me.  My Facebook and Twitter feeds were invaded by news of friends and colleagues facing any number of funerals astride Easter-related celebrations.  Then, there was the news that a much-beloved-by-many colleague in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) had succumbed to pancreatic cancer only a month after being diagnosed.  In the aftermath of “resurrection” news, death seemed all around. 

And death has seemed sure on display.  Not just in my little part of the world.  A deadly gas attack in Syria was answered by a deadly bombing.  Maundy Thursday was interrupted by news that the “mother of all bombs” had been deployed by U.S. forces.  Here in Arkansas, the state not only busily scheduled the executions of 8 condemned men—two-at-a-time, in order to beat the expiration date on the drugs used for the executions—it carried out most of them. 

“O death where is thy sting?”—that famous verse from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Church—is seemingly just a line.  There’s been sting a-plenty these days. 

In these “Easter weeks” news of even more deaths—people close to members of our Church staff, anniversaries of other deaths significant in the lives of people around me, concerns about people’s health, diagnoses of cancer and other illnesses promising that death hasn’t gone away or yet been completely sacked.  The truth is the dying still seems to be happening, and the rising not so much. 

Our lives, it seems, are continually being transformed by death.  People are dying all the time.  So what about the promise of the resurrection having a little more punch?  I’d like to see death finally get punched in the face.  I’m sure that other people would, too. 

But too often our pleas sound only for a reprieve from the pain and suffering associated with death.  We limit our “rising” to some kind of “stay of death” in which those who die live longer and accompany us farther on life’s journey.  We want a Lazarus-like re-living, not a Jesus-like resurrecting. 

But the truth is that resurrection isn’t a resuscitation.  When Jesus is raised from the dead he isn’t simply “put back” the way he was.  Resurrection was transformative.  And I think that’s how it’s supposed to be for us, too! 

Transformative. 

I believe God is always working on the dark places in our lives.  That if nothing else, God gives us strength and courage not to be so afraid and debilitated in this world.  We know that God has good things in mind and that this is enough, because God doesn’t abandon us to whatever may happen, but is always at work changing us and the world around us. 

The truth remains, however, that dying and rising in Christ is no easy feat!  It usually doesn’t “just happen;” much like Lent it takes some willingness on our part to engage in the work of “new life.”  It actually means change—the change of attuning ourselves more and more to God’s love, God’s gifts, and God’s possibilities that are always inviting us to do more, be more, and LIVE more. 

So what are we doing to show the world new life in Christ?  How might we give witness to the daily victory of God in our own lives and in the lives of those around us?  Where are we seeing Jesus alive and well, and how are we making others aware? 

Jot down some notes and share them with someone in your life.  New life is worth sharing.  That’s what Jesus does, and we can to.  And as we do, the light of life will displace the darkness.  The sting of death may be another matter, but of the light of life there can be no doubt. 

© Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Teaching Elder and Pastor, The First Presbyterian Church of El Dorado, Arkansas

What God Does!

In response to the team he coached winning the college football national championship, Dabo Swinney, in an on-camera interview, said first, “Only God does this!” 

It was a lie, of course.  I’m pretty sure God doesn’t play college football; yet, if Swinney were being honest, surely he wouldn’t have accepted the trophy!  Rather, wouldn’t the trophy belong in God’s trophy case—since “God did it.”  (I’m pretty confident, however, that the trophy will only be seen in the trophy case at the University of Clemson—(whether God did it or not!). 

It was a lie, of course—God doing it.  Anyone familiar with the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments knows that “God doesn’t work like that.”  God shows a preference for the extreme, radical underdog.  If God had orchestrated the college football national championship, wouldn’t God have done it with the team holding the longest losing streak going into the game?  Or, at least another team, not quite with the obvious talented abilities of the players of the two teams picked to play for the title two years in a row, now!  If the God of Bethlehem had done this, people know, it would have been different. 

A lot different! 

I hope!  I hope people recognize just HOW different.  With all the “improbable choices of God—Moses, who didn’t want to have to go back to Egypt to lead God’s people; David, who was the tender-est man-child of Jesse’s sons, tending the sheep in the field, not considered a capable candidate by human eyes; the infant Jesus born into the realm of Herod, the tyrannical leader of the empire crushing the world. 

This is the danger of the “prosperity gospel’s” prominence—the gospel of so-called “good news” that promises us if we put in the work, God will reward us—for we deserve it because of our faithfulness. 

But it seems like we’re going to start hearing more and more of this.  “Public religion,” expressed in supposed Christian values, by public figures and well-meaning people.  It always sounds like it’s something that’s “out of the Bible, but it isn’t.  Contrary to Coach Swinney’s observation, God doesn’t play college football; and even if God were in that business, it wouldn’t be for national championships.  Coach Swinney’s not the chief purveyor of these things; he’s actually a victim, having learned it from other well-polished speakers, from political hopefuls to supposed clerics televising the need not only to pray but to send in our “investments” toward the good life we deserve and God is just waiting to provide. 

It’s worrisome, this supposed “good news,” the admonishment “not to worry” because a politician or a group of politicians is going to “take care of it,” or that even “God will take care of it” when the solution involves the dis-enfranchisement of whole groups of people in the form of God’s favor for some and disfavor for others.  Which is, of course, the promise of “prosperity people”—God will love you if you follow; or curse you if you don’t.  Heads, I win; tails, you lose.  Either way the system is rigged. 

The “rigged system” is what God seeks to break—pursuing special relationship with human beings demonstrated in the story of Christmas that we just celebrated.  Or, as the prophet Isaiah declares: 

For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, [God has] broken…

What God does FOR US is send us Jesus.  Not to ensure our health and wealth and any kind of worldly salvation, but to break us from our oppression to sin. 

The promises of God come with opportunities for us to live out the promises of God’s vision as lived in the person of Christ.  In particular, his ministry of care for the disenfranchised.  The “prosperity people” so easily separate the good things that happen to the most deserving, suggesting that it’s a world where we all get what’s coming to us in the end.  Like a western where the black hats get what’s coming to them! 

But I can’t find a good Biblical story where someone gets what is really deserved.  God is so invested in the counter-instinctual work defined not by what someone deserves but by forgiveness, freedom, and love—instead. 

I’m afraid the voices of entitlement are just going to become louder and more obnoxious. 

“It’s our turn.” 

“We won.” 

“We worked harder.” 

“We deserve ….” 

To the victor go the spoils—is the old saying. 

The Bible teaches this isn’t how it is at all.  The one with the “most” doesn’t win. 

The practitioners of this public religion of prosperity seem to be enjoying their time of entitlement.  But as Seth Godin writes inhis blog,

“Entitlement gets us nothing but heartache.  It blinds us to what’s possible.  It insulates us from the magic of gratitude.  And most of all, it lets us off the hook, pushing us away from taking responsibility (and action) and toward apportioning blame and anger instead.” 

There’s enough blame and anger to go around these days. 

On the other hand, the Bible teaches me that if those who are publicly dishing blame and anger (intentionally or by accident) were in fact, more familiar with the sacred writings of Christianity, there would be something else to say. 

The real work, the counter-intuitive work that Jesus teaches is hard work.  It’s much harder than the prosperity promises of this public—so-called “Christian”—religion.  But those of us who take the Bible seriously are called to keep at it—counter-cultural, counter-intuitive, counter-instinctual.  Doing what is least expected. 

That’s what God does! 

So if you’re looking for something to say; or needing to say something—say that you’re grateful for all the opportunities God has given you.  Not because you deserve them, but because you don’t.  And God chooses you anyway. 

That’s what God does. 

© Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Teaching Elder and Pastor, The First Presbyterian Church of El Dorado, Arkansas