Actually the facts of the true meaning of Christmas are pretty sobering.   Joseph and Mary, having travelled by foot to their hometown for the census, there wasn’t any place to actually stay.  Maybe they got their too late given the slow journey what with Mary pregnant and all.  And what a pregnancy!  She carried the Child of God.  What’s not talked about much in that part of the story is how great a guy Joseph was to not divorce his betrothed. That’s right, they weren’t married. She had a child out of wedlock and Joseph had every right to ditch Mary but, he didn’t.  Sure, he had a dream and that was a real message from God, but, instead of brushing it off as a some bad fish for dinner, Joseph actually believed what God was saying to Him.  And so, he and Mary were heading up to Bethlehem for the mundane chore of census taking and tax giving.  Ho Hum.

But while on the surface it was ho hum, what was really happening was amazing.  The Christ Child was to be born.  Mary, is a great example of a regular, teenage girl who doesn’t really know what is happening to her, but, she’s okay with it since she trusts God.  She’s willing to say”ok I don’t really get this, but, I do know this, I trust God and this whole baby out of wedlock thing is WAY against my religion and the social norms of my day, but, I’m going with it since I trust You (God)” (see the Bible, Luke 1)

How many of us might be better off if we said the same thing, “I don’t really understand what’s going on here, but, I’ll go with it, since I trust You”.  We might have alot more life in our life!    And who knows what blessing we might bring to others here in the present…what Christmas you or I might bring to someone as Mary and Joseph did in the past….even though in the begininng we have no idea where the end will be.

Hear it on LaLa: Could You Believe

He was a friend to sinners
He was a gentle man
Beautiful, humble master plan
His voice could pierce the darkness
Quiet an angry sea
I hear Him saying follow me
I look in your eyes and I tell you these things
But somehow I know that it’s hard to believe

Could you believe if I really was like Him
If I lived all the words that I said
If for a change I would kneel down before you
And serve you instead
Could you believe

He was the Lamb of mercy
Undying hope of men
Waiting for love to come again
He is the light of heaven
Radiant Prince of peace
I Hear him saying, “Follow Me”
I look in your eyes and I tell you these things
But somehow I know that it’s hard to believe

Could you believe if I carried my own cross
If I saw that the children were fed
If for a moment I held my opinion
And quietly led Could you believe

I am meant to be a pure reflection of the truth
So above it all I pray that I will not obscure the view

Could you believe if I stood here transparent
And through me you could see his eyes
Could you believe if you saw right inside me
and there was no disguise
Could you believe if I was really like him
If I lived all the words that I said
If it was clear that I held in my heart
What I know in my head
Could you believe, could you believe
Looking at me, could you believe
Could you believe?

Twila Paris, 1999,  from album, “True North”

What almost every critic of LGBTIQA Christians misses is this:  Christ doesn’t care who you are;  He cares what’s in  our hearts and he cares how we live.  Since coming out I’ve met alot of people in our community whom I, as a former lay preacher, would have thought twice about.  But it’s nice to know that God was patient, even with me, as I learned our community isn’t that different from any other community.   And as I learned I was in no ways perfect (and still am not) I did learn about repentance in the process.  Pastor Candace’s sermon sums it up best.

So what about our sermon already?  Here’s an exerpt, I hope you get a fresh cup of coffee, as I did, and enjoy it completely:

Just this past week we inaugurated a new president. Many liberals – and even many conservatives – expect a lot from this man. Some even expect him to work miracles and move this nation very quickly in the direction they’d like to see it move. The story of Nineveh is a reminder that the best way to change this nation – the best way to lead our modern day Nineveh to true repentance – is by changing ourselves.

In this story God shows us that if we want change – we have to initiate it. By the time the king gets around to sending out a proclamation – it will be too late. We cannot wait for the king – or the president – to tell us what kind of changes need to take place in this world. We already know. We’ve already heard God speaking. Love has already come to town and we don’t need the president to tell us to jump that train or catch that plane. Real change – change that improves the lives of everyone from the banker to the beggar – doesn’t come from the top down. If the past eight years has taught us nothing, it should have taught us that those at the top are most concerned with those at the top. For real change to come to the least of these – the least of these must be the agents for that change.

If you want the hungry fed, feed them. If you want the homeless housed, house them. If you want equal rights, fight for them. If you want the prisoner visited, go visit them. If you want the naked clothed, clothe them. Don’t wait for a presidential decree or for Congress to pass a law. When love comes to town, the least of these understand their task – there is no “us” and “them” – it’s some of us for all of us.

Jonah’s message to Nineveh is just as urgent for us today. “Your time’s almost up. Get moving.”

There’s alot more in her sermon and I hope you are blessed, just as I was    You may reach her Sermon, “When Love Comes to Town” at Whosoever magazine here.

(photo courtesy of  Grey Blue Skies Photos)

As he [Jesus] got into the boat, his disciples followed him.  And a great storm developed on the sea so that the waves began to swamp the boat. But he was asleep. So they came and woke him up saying, “Lord, save us! We are about to die!” But he said to them, “Why are you cowardly, you people of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it was dead calm. And the men were amazed and said, “What sort of person is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him!”

Some backstory and context for you:

• The Disciples were professional fisherman by trade.  They knew the Sea of Galilee well
• Just prior to this event, the Disciples had seen Jesus: Cleanse a leper (Mt 8:1), Heal a Roman Army Centurion servant (Mt 8:5), and heal Peter’s Mother-in-Law (Mt 8:14).  So they had seen what kind of power their simple friend and teacher, Jesus, had.
• Since the boat held all the disciples, it was probably very large
• The disciples followed Jesus even though they did not know all about him yet.

So what about the sermon?  Well it’s great, and you should click over to take a read with your afternoon latte, but here are some teasers:

• We can’t blame ourselves, however, if we often forget who holds the greatest power in our universe. As we survey our world, we see many opulent displays of human power – nuclear weapons, terrorist bombs, loaded guns, and armored vehicles. These are certainly powerful enough to bring destruction to our world and perhaps annihilate our world all together. Yet, not one of them is as powerful as the God we serve.
• We are like the disciples who, panic-stricken, accused Jesus of not caring about their fate.
• Thomas Merton tells us that “to keep ourselves spiritually alive we must constantly renew our faith. We are like pilots of fogbound steamers, peering into the gloom in front of us, listening to the sounds of other ships, and we can only reach our harbor if we keep alert.
• When things are going well in life it’s easy to be lulled into a false sense of security, believing nothing bad can befall us again. We have fallen asleep at the wheel and we awake in a panic when the storms of life begin to blow. We wonder where God is and if we have been abandoned to the waves that threaten to capsize our boat. We accuse God of being asleep – leaving us to be swallowed up by our problems.

Is Jesus asleep or are each of us?  Read the sermon at Whosever to find the answer.  Click to the Whosoever site at this link here: “Jesus, Wake Up!”

(Photo courtesy of Shayan’s Photos)

]]> http://beckscafe.com/2009/07/05/is-jesus-asleep-or-are-you/feed/ 0 http://beckscafe.com/2009/06/23/welcoming-congregations-more-likely-to-be-active-active-on-social-justice/ http://beckscafe.com/2009/06/23/welcoming-congregations-more-likely-to-be-active-active-on-social-justice/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:21:41 +0000 Rebecca http://beckscafe.com/?p=784 Now this is something I never expected to see, “New studies demonstrate welcoming congregations are more active on social justice and LGBT advocacy“.    First some background about my experience.

My experience in Evangelical Church circles had been a mixed blessing on social justice.   On one hand there was a tremendous life of the church on Sunday. Vibrant and moving worship.  Excellent preaching and teaching.   Strong support for most members. Miraculous answer to prayer at times.  And effective children’s ministry.  But the lack of actual practice of Micah 6:8, the social justice piece of the gospel, was troubling:

6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord really wants from you: He wants you to promote justice, to be faithful, and to live obediently before your God (NET Bible)

It’s such a big part of the Gospel I often wondered, “shouldn’t we have more attention on that piece?”

So the headline “New studies demonstrate welcoming congregations are more active on social justice and LGBT advocacy” really caught my eye, and the results even more so.  Check these out:

• More than half of clergy in welcoming congregations reported that the welcoming process helped their congregation to witness and act on other social justice issues. In describing this effect, one welcoming pastor said the church is more active in “the plight of the oppressed and marginalized” because of the church’s welcoming process.
• “One of the most exciting findings from this study is the direct connection between being a welcoming congregation and involvement in other social justice issues,” says the Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, Institute for Welcoming Resources and faith work director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “Our surveys demonstrate that the welcoming process makes a meaningful difference. Welcoming congregations are on the front lines in economic justice, homelessness, racial justice, immigration and other important areas of religious witness.”

Now granted, the survey does focus on churches who are welcoming and affirming of the LGBT community already so perhaps there is some bias.  I wonder what the effects would be on a broader range of churches.  Still, I found the connection between a church being welcoming and affirming and being more open to helping the oppressed and down trodden unexpected.  Perhaps opening our hearts to one group makes cold hearts thaw towards others.

You can read the press release on the study at The Task Force’s website here.
If you’ve got enough coffee left, you can read the whole study at the Institute for Welcoming Resources website here.

Oh and if  you are in Massachusetts, a great welcoming church for Christians is First Presbyterian of Waltham.   There are others too, if you do a search on you favorite search engine under “Open and Affirming” you should see a list.  Keshet is a good choice to find resources if you are Jewish.

(Graphic image courtesy of Bemky and used under Creative Commons License)

While that may seem self-evident, it’s a major deal for a church like Willow Creek to admit it.

This happened during a meeting that none other than Julie Nemeck attended at Willow Creek. You might remember Dr. Nemecek, she’s both an experienced pastor and educator who was booted from her job in Michigan for being trans.

Here’s a quote from the story on her blog:

For our part, we were surprised and pleased that Willow Creek’s own 30-year study of homosexuality has led them to conclude that: (1) Sexual orientation is unchangeable. and (2) Sexual orientation should not keep someone from being received into their church. They acknowledged that 6 of the 7 verses used to condemn homosexuality are irrelevant; really referring to other things.

You can read the full story at Julie’s blog at her story, “Soulforce, Willow Creek and Me“.

Their story is pretty amazing and really goes back to something that we miss sometimes as Christians and as transgender people: God isn’t so much concerned with who we are but in our resultant behavior; our character. Are any of our behavior Christlike or not? Are our behaviors and actions showing we are redemptive and healing in our relationships and still uncompromising, and, though very much imperfect, disciples?

For me, it’s important to remember my behaviors are a reflection of my individual heartfelt desire to “give back”, in a sense, to Christ for His sacrifice for me on the cross and my personal acceptance of His sacrifice for my sins. My behaviors can’t earn me God’s love but they can show how much I love Him by loving others.

It’s easy to forget that in Jesus’s day, He was considered an out there radical bent on destroying the government and the powers of the day. He was considered a major league weirdo and threat! And though He was a radical, even a surface read of the Gospels shows you how redemptive and healing His behaviors were. What a great example He left us.

You can learn about SoulForce at this linkie love here. Photos of this historic meeting are at SoulForce photos here.

• Merry Christmas; The Incarnation: a post we did last year on this wonderful day and what the meaning of the season is
• God’s Diversity Christmas: is a wonderful post on God’s audience by Julie Nemecek
• Give Mary Credit: Over at Heartlight, they give us a short, neat reminder about Mary’s faith as a woman
• Should Christians Celebrate Christmas?   Is a well documented, historical and analytical perspective on this topic

Merry Christmas to all our readers, coffee swillers and general hanger-oners from us at Beck’s Cafe.

Section 2 Findings…actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim…

So if your transgender, it’s protective and it’s also true if your disabled. That’s right, the disabled are in fact a group even more subject to hate crimes than transgender people. Sadly, they can’t hardly speak for themselves at all. Thank God all we have is GID. Check out these factoids on hate crimes focused on the disabled:

• In 1994, due to the growing prevalence of studies and massive anecdotal instances of hate crimes against people with disabilities, the category of “disability” was added to the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990
• The U.S. Office on Crime Statistics reported in 2002 that in many cases, crime victims with disabilities have never participated in the criminal justice process, “even if they have been repeatedly and brutally victimized.” (the victims are often afraid of retaliation from the perpetrator; even the caregiver)
• disability-based bias crimes are all too frequently mislabeled as “abuse” and never directed from the social service or education systems to the criminal justice system. Even very serious crimes — including rape, assault, and vandalism — are too-frequently labeled “abuse.”

(data on hate crimes against the disabled from Civil Rights.org and UCLA Berkley Newsletter, “Flawed FBI reporting system undercounts disability hate crimes“. )

So back to President Bush and his conundrum. Dr. Nemecek sums it up nicely, at her blog, when she says, ”

He doesn’t need to ask “What would Jesus do?” because he has a more certain answer in asking “What DID Jesus do?” That answer is simple. Jesus befriended and sought to protect the oppressed of his day from the attacks of the religious right

In Jesus day, the Pharisees were a sect in the Jewish faith who would have been part of the religeous “right”. They were those who, in His words were:

• (vipers) “You offspring of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (Matthew 3:7)
• (hypocrites) “But woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You keep locking people out of the kingdom of heaven! For you neither enter nor permit those trying to enter to go in. (Matthew 23:13)
• (unjust) “But woe to you Pharisees! You give a tenth of your mint, rue, and every herb, yet you neglect justice and love for God! But you should have done these things without neglecting the others. (Luke 11:42)

Jesus didn’t say that what the Pharisees taught was wrong…it’s how they lived and lived among the people that was wrong. It was their oppression of the people and unjust actions. That’s the conundrum President Bush has. To not sign the bill means he’s choosing to not protect the oppressed and siding with a vocal religious right. It doesn’t take a leap of faith to see that’s what Jesus did, protect and advocate for the oppressed, it just takes doing the stuff Jesus did.

(Bible references are from the Net Bible)

The Denver Post reported, in the September 24th edition, the results of a study performed by the University of Texas that,

higher education is not the secularizing influence many Christians suspect it to be…Texas researchers found that college students were less likely to lose their religion than others in their age group, 18 to 25 years old.

Interestingly, 24% of those who never attended college said that religion had become less important to them compared with only 15% of those who did attend college. Could college make you smarter and more religious? We certainly didn’t think so as we saw our little birds flutter from our nest. But we felt that we and our public school, had taught them to think for themselves. It turns out that thinking about your faith is what this is all about. And at U.S. Universities, where the percentage of atheists and agnostics teaching are three times as high as the general population, a UCLA study found that,

79 percent of college students surveyed believed in God, 69 percent prayed and 81 percent attended some religious services.

Teaching of all kinds makes kids think about who they are, who they are becoming and what they believe. That sounds healthy not damaging. This quote, by Church of Christ Minister Mark Wylie, from the Denver Post article, might be the best lesson here,

“You have to let college students explore,” Wylie said. “They are incredibly spiritually active and vibrant.”

But, he concluded, they don’t like a hard sell from any side of the debate; I think alot of us fall into that category these days.

Speaking of thinking, another writer, named Caryn Lemur, has penned some outstanding articles to help Christians and non-Christians alike, think about what it means to be transgender in the midst of their faith. It can be a damning paralysis to be Christian and be transgender (perhaps this is so for all faiths) but Caryn’s essays will help you to think critically about this topic. That is if you need to think about it at all.

To read the Denver Post article; “Study: College campuses may nurture faith”, click to the Denver Post HERE.
To read Caryn’s “Essays For The Thinking Christian”, please visit her site at this link HERE.

The Union for Reform Judaism announced on August 7th a major revision to their 10-year old guide on welcoming individuals into the community. They are now including blessings for transgender people in the union’s 500-page resource manual for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender inclusion. The guide includes two blessings authored by Rabbi Elliot Kukla for transitioning genders. You can read the official press release on this announcement by clicking to the Union for Reform Judaism site at this link HERE.

There is some news on the wire on this so here’s some additional resources for you to check out:

• Miami Herald.com coverage of this event
• Something Jewish.com coverage of this announcement

Chanukkah, the Jewish festival of rededication, also known as the festival of lights, is an eight day festival beginning on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev.

Chanukkah is probably one of the best known Jewish holidays, not because of any great religious significance, but because of its proximity to Christmas. Many non-Jews (and even many assimilated Jews!) think of this holiday as the Jewish Christmas, adopting many of the Christmas customs, such as elaborate gift-giving and decoration. It is bitterly ironic that this holiday, which has its roots in a revolution against assimilation and the suppression of Jewish religion, has become the most assimilated, secular holiday on our calendar.

The Story

The story of Chanukkah begins in the reign of Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered Syria, Egypt and Palestine, but allowed the lands under his control to continue observing their own religions and retain a certain degree of autonomy. Under this relatively benevolent rule, many Jews assimilated much of Hellenistic culture, adopting the language, the customs and the dress of the Greeks, in much the same way that Jews in America today blend into the secular American society.

More than a century later, a successor of Alexander, Antiochus IV was in control of the region. He began to oppress the Jews severely, placing a Hellenistic priest in the Temple, massacring Jews, prohibiting the practice of the Jewish religion, and desecrating the Temple by requiring the sacrifice of pigs (a non-kosher animal) on the altar. Two groups opposed Antiochus: a basically nationalistic group led by Mattathias the Hasmonean and his son Judah Maccabee, and a religious traditionalist group known as the Chasidim, the forerunners of the Pharisees (no direct connection to the modern movement known as Chasidism). They joined forces in a revolt against both the assimilation of the Hellenistic Jews and oppression by the Selucid Greek government. The revolution succeeded and the Temple was rededicated.

According to tradition as recorded in the Talmud, at the time of the rededication, there was very little oil left that had not been defiled by the Greeks. Oil was needed for the menorah (candelabrum) in the Temple, which was supposed to burn throughout the night every night. There was only enough oil to burn for one day, yet miraculously, it burned for eight days, the time needed to prepare a fresh supply of oil for the menorah. An eight day festival was declared to commemorate this miracle. Note that the holiday commemorates the miracle of the oil, not the military victory: Jews do not glorify war.

You can read more about Chanukkah at the full article on Judaism 101 at this link HERE.

AND for a family taste tested Kugelly good treat during Chanukkah, click to our article, Kugelly-goodness, from our test kitchens!

(photo courtesy of Brew*Crew’s Photos, used under Creative Commons license)