Unanswered Prayers?

Several years ago there was a popular song that said, "Some of God's best gifts are unanswered prayers”. I like the idea of the song. It basically says that we think we know what is best for us, but sometimes what we pray for would have actually turn out badly for us. As they say, "Be careful what you pray for, you might get it”. There is wisdom in that, because sometimes we really do not know what is best for us. In hindsight we may recognize that what we wanted might not have been best for us. That is a great insight and very true, however I do want to challenge something the song writer says. Often I hear that phrase "unanswered prayer" from people. So the only type of prayer that gets "answered" is the one in which we get what we want?

First, that implies that the purpose of prayer is to tell God what we need and want and to get it. In this mode of thought, prayer is a tool to get through life, to get out of jams we have gotten into. Perhaps, it is a tool to demand of God not just our legitimate needs, but also our desires. When we don't get what we pray for, we assume God did not "answer our prayer". There is a certain kind of anger at God in that attitude. It insists that God must be the great Santa Claus in the sky, giving us what we want and desire. There is a whole popular theology that sees God this way. It says that if we "claim the promises" of God, we can have everything we want including all the material wealth we want. People who don't get what they want from prayer, according to this view, do not have enough faith. These folk never consider that what they want may be harmful for them. They never ask themselves, "What does God want?”. When prayer becomes a means to an end, there is no relationship with the Divine. There is no priority in our prayer given to what God wants. God's sole purpose is to fulfill our wishes and dreams.

If we assume prayer is a tool to get what we want, it becomes easy to say that God did not answer our prayer. Does it ever occur to us that God might have said "no"? Is it possible that God will grant our request at a later time, but now is not the best time? The idea of "unanswered prayer" implies God is not listening. We assume God does not care for us if we do not get what we want. It assumes that prayer is a wish list, or maybe a ransom demand. God's silence is interpreted as a rejection of us and our perceived need. However, we do not always know what is best for us, so God’s “no” might be for our good.

Jesus, when facing the cross, asked that the cup of suffering be taken from him. He asked it three times. Each time, however, he added "not as I will, but as you will". Jesus lived the prayer he taught us to pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". God invites us into relationship with himself and God does hear our prayers, granting them according to his will .We must not look at prayer as a tool to get what we want, but as a communication and communion with God. It is a two way communication. We are invited to ask God for our needs. The problem comes in not also praying that God's will be done. When we ask a friend for something and don't get what we want, does that necessarily mean our friend does not care about us? Some would say yes, but it is not always true. A friend is not a friend if they say yes to harmful things. Real love and friendship endure by communication. That is what prayer is. We ask, God loves us and bids us to do so, but we must accept God's answer. We learn that what we think we want is not always best for us. Like Jesus, we must acknowledge God's sovereign will, and accept it. Like Jesus, God is with us in our suffering. Jesus became like us to show us God is with us, even to the point of suffering and dying. We may pray that God will move a mountain; we may say that God did not answer our prayer if the mountain stays in place. What if God has given us the equipment and guidance to climb the mountain? Maybe we don't see that because we are attached to our solution to our own problems, not God’s.

Ultimately this is what the country song I quoted is trying to say. Sometimes what we want is not what is best for us, and what we get is what we really need. However, that does not mean that God has not heard and answered. Prayer is a communion with God, not a list of demands. God is always with us in our sufferings and our needs. Let us pray for what we need and even want, but let us realize God can say no. That sometimes is the best thing for us!

In The Peace of God's Presence,
Jim Stahr

The Limits of Theology

I will bet you never thought I would say that! Sometimes modern western theologians are accused of being overly influenced by Greek philosophy in our theology. While certainly the church was influenced by those modes of expression, our doctrine comes from the Bible and early Christian tradition itself. The ancient Christians saw God as a great mystery. God cannot be contained or fully understood by any created being, even humans. God can be known through Divine revelation, but the entirety of God is totally incomprehensible. Theology arises from the lived experience of the Church in its journey, and derives from the Church's worship of God and life of prayer. We in the western Church assert that but put much more trust in our mind's ability to understand God. Under the influence of the precision of Roman law and the influence of Medieval Scholasticism, we have put much more stock in the ability of the intellect to understand God. We Protestants have particularly been influenced in that way. We believe that precision of theology must be achieved before worshipping together can take place. While I think most Protestant theologians would agree that certainly our worship and prayer inform our theology, our emphasis on the mind and especially on agreement to very precise doctrinal statements, has led us to the many fractures we see in the Western Church today. It is time for us to allow God to put the awe, wonder, and mystery back into our theology.

Now, so far that history lesson has been about as dry as, well, most theological statements! All Christians would agree that it is the living relationship to the triune God that makes our beliefs come alive in us. If we limit the infinite God to our understanding we have reduced God. Then we reduce salvation to some formula, whether a creedal formula or a fundamentalist principle. Not long ago a fundamentalist preacher told me that it was not enough to acknowledge Jesus as Lord, the most ancient confession of the Church, but one must also believe in the Bible literally from cover to cover to be saved. The books of the Bible are written individually and have no concept of themselves as constituting one book. The Bible treats the confession of Jesus as Lord as the saving confession. We must not add things to this when preaching salvation in Christ.

As a Protestant Christian, I affirm that the Bible is the Word of God. Catholics and Orthodox would too. But salvation is for the whole person. When we reduce it to just a mental exercise, we kill it. As a Presbyterian, and a Confessional Christian, I believe the creeds are important in guiding us, and forming us in what the Church believes and confesses. There is a place for our intellect. If Bible and creed are not influencing us, then our faith is reduced to personal or denominational opinion. Those who minimize the Bible in theology assert whatever seems good to them as truth. Those who confuse the Bible with God, or Creed with final ultimate and complete revelation, also reduce the unknowable mystery of God to words. Our intellect is part of our salvation. So are our emotions, our spirituality, and our life in the Community of Faith. We are saved as whole people in the full theology of the Church, not just as souls, or minds, or as bodies, but as whole beings.

So, the Bible is God's Word and points beyond itself to the living God. The creeds tell us what the Church has, and will continue, to believe and confess in her pilgrim journey on earth. What other Christians have believed and experienced through the ages is important. The faith is not an exercise in individual belief and opinion. As the Church worships we are lead to a collective experience with God and informed through Word and Sacrament. Through corporate and private prayer, we come into a personal and saving relationship with God, and confess the saving confession that Jesus is our Lord. Salvation is holistic, it cannot be reduced. The purpose of theology, and all that the Church does, is to bring us into a living relationship with the living Christ, to draw us into that mystery which will take us a lifetime to begin to understand, and to send us forth to serve a lost and hurting world with the Good News. We will never know God fully, but we do know from the Bible, our historic Confessions, and our own collective and lived experience, what God wants us to do. God has given us a relationship to himself, and has shown us how to serve God in this world, and enjoy God forever. This is the purpose for which we are created. Personally I am glad there is mystery in our relationship to God, it means we must grow on, it reminds us that we are created beings and human, only God is infinite. It reminds us of the grandeur of God and the reach of our faith. There are limits to theology because we cannot fully know God, but we can know our relationship to God and go forth to serve in love. Let's get to it.

In the Mystery of the Triune God,
Jim

June 2008 Newsletter

Words

In this political campaign year, words and their meaning become very important. Each candidate, from every party, will be trying to get their message out. There is nothing wrong with this; it is a part of being a free society. Sometimes these words become personal and ugly, and we know that some of these attacks work. I will leave that to the candidates, parties, and electorate, to work out the political ethics of attack ads. My point for this newsletter is that words have meaning and can be the instrument conveying powerful symbols both positively and negatively. They say "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me". That was taught to children for a long time to teach them not to respond to those who taunt them. There is some truth and some falsehood to this. We have all known people who are the name calling type. Many times we just ignore them. We have all known people prone to hateful sarcastic outbursts, denigrating the person on whom they look down. Most of the time we ignore them, because their taunts are unimportant. We also know that words can do grave harm. Parents who verbally abuse their children cause the child to grow up hating themselves and with a lack of confidence in their abilities. They may even grow up to be verbally abusive themselves. There are indeed words that can hurt, and words that can do damage. Words, and the ideas they can convey, are very important.

As Christians we inherit a reverence for words from Jewish tradition. We know their power. By a word of command, "Let there be light!” God created the universe. Therefore God's spoken word became our reality and our life. We Christians believe that the Living Word, Jesus Christ, became flesh and lived among us, died a human death, and rose to give us new life. He is the Word of love God spoke to us, uniting us forever to God and saving us. Jesus is what God has to say to us, and we are forever changed. As Christians, we also believe that God inspired the writers of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. We call these writings the Word of God. If we speak more precisely, the scriptures are the written word of God. They direct us to a living relationship with the triune God. They are the authority and directive force of our lives when used by the Holy Spirit to make us alive in Christ.

Along with sacraments, which are the word of God enacted in the Church, we preach the word of God. Most of us think that this means a sermon in churches on Sundays, holy days, and other occasions. It does mean that, of course. Recently, in the political arena, the words of certain preachers came into public knowledge. The words of all the preachers involved, on both sides of the spectrum, were outrageous. It seems to me that this is the old human tribal tendency to vilify those who are different from us. We want to paint a clear and uncompromising picture of our goodness in contrast to our enemy. The problem is in the delivery. In the 34 years of my pastoral ministry I have heard pastors say really negative and hurtful things in their pulpits and personal conversations. I know these people to be good Christians who sincerely serve Christ. Sometimes we become so afraid of those whom we perceive to be enemies we react with our verbal violence. We call them non-Christians if they disagree with us on even trivial matters.

There is a place and a time for strong and uncompromising speech. It is an art to know when and how to use it. I am not sure that I have grasped that art at all. There are times when Christians must make clear statements about evil and oppression in the world. However, I think now we are in a time for the Church to speak healing words in our culture. We are severely divided about many issues. People on all sides are hurting. Sometimes Christians on all sides are doing the hurting. They go beyond taking a stand on issues to belittle and even speak hate speech toward the enemy. Yes Jesus did confront evil and he did so uncompromisingly. He also told us to love our enemies. We can stand for right and not be verbally aggressive. Loving our neighbors can be difficult. Loving our enemies is a tall order. Let us try to make stands for right with respect for others. Let us speak words of healing and blessing wherever possible. Maybe then the world will become less skeptical about the way of Christ. Let's begin today! Whom can you bless on this day that the Lord has made?

Yours in the Living Word,
Jim Stahr

Can't Have One Without The Other!

No I am not talking about love and marriage, but about life and death, cross and resurrection. Note the reversal in those two ideas. Our normal way of thinking is life first, then death. But the faith reverses things in the light of Jesus resurrection. It is cross and resurrection, death to life. In the death of our Lord Jesus, we have life, death and life again. That is why Jesus is unique and both are essential.

A few years ago the Mel Gibson movie "The Passion of the Christ" was shown during Lent. It portrayed what the title said it would, the death of Jesus. This movie moved many people and may have brought a few to faith. It showed the great lengths our Lord took in order to win our salvation. However, in my mind, two hours of beating Jesus and crucifying him and two or three minutes of his resurrection puts the emphasis in absolutely the wrong place. At the very least there should be a sequel to portray all of the appearances of Jesus and his ascension, ending in Pentecost. Yet, for many Christians, the cross has much more significance than the resurrection. I have never been able to figure that out. Why would the cross be the most important thing? I grant it is of supreme importance to our atonement and forgiveness, but is it the ultimate thing to which to cling?

As I have said nearly every Lent, the cross is important. In it we find the mystery of our forgiveness through Christ's sacrifice. There are many theories of atonement in Western theology. The Western mind wants to understand the meaning of things, particularly in our culture. None of the theories of atonement are easy to understand. They give us no more than a partial glimpse of what atonement is about. If the cross is ultimate, then death is ultimate. It is life, death and nothing. Then there is the fact that the cross was a common punishment for state criminals who were not citizens of Rome. I have seen estimates as high as 300,000 crucifixions in the Holy Land in the time Rome ruled it. What is one more dead traitor to Rome? Two other people died the day Jesus did that day. His death was not unique. Why is it that only one of those deaths, that of Jesus of Nazareth, is revered as atoning by a billion people on earth today? Of course it was because Jesus was the incarnate God and because he rose from the dead. So, the thing that makes the cross unique and atoning is who Jesus was and that he rose on the third day. God alone can give us the gift of life eternal. It is a gift of grace!

Why then do that certain groups put more emphasis on the cross, rather than the resurrection? I think it is partly their burden of guilt. They believe they deserve that punishment, but Jesus took it for them. Are we to spend our lives wallowing in our own sins? Is there not some resurrection for us to Christian joy and love of life, rather than constant guilt and looking past death toward where we are going to spend eternity? We become a death cult when we put the cross ahead of the resurrection. That is something to be pitied, for the earliest Christians saw the resurrection as that which gives life in this world and into the next world as well. The broken relationship with God which our sin has created, which brought on death, is reversed in the resurrection. We can be really alive because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We can be assured of life as the ultimate good gift from God. We can be sure that no evil will destroy our relationship with God. Yes, life seems to be a case of life, then death. But it is really life, death and life, for believers

As we continue the journey of Lent, the holy spring of the Church, the shadows will grow darker, and the shadow of the cross, and of death, will be cast upon us. That shadow reminds us that we are dust, and to dust we too shall return. Then will come the full burst of the light of the resurrection! The cross is of immense importance, but it is not ultimate. Good Friday is not the high holy day we are preparing to celebrate, but the festival of the resurrection of Christ. Yes in Lent we do focus on the fact that is all too apparent in human history, we sin, and we die. But that is penultimate for Christians. We also live a life that is eternal. Otherwise Christianity would really be as depressing as people sometimes think it is. Yes there is the darkness of Holy Week. There is also the light of resurrection. We must have the cross! We must have the resurrection! We can't have one without the other! As we continue the journey of Lent, seeking God's mercy, remember the life that lies beyond the darkness of sin and death. As we ask for God's mercy, remember the profound gift of forgiving love that God gave us. We live and will live eternally because Christ is risen.

In Hope,
Jim Stahr

The Third Person

When I was a youth I wondered why the Apostle's creed gave so little time to the third article of the creed, "I believe in the Holy Spirit". We spent a lot of time on the Son, and somewhat more on the Father. Why so little on the Holy Spirit? I learned in my theological education that the third article of the Creed is the whole last paragraph, and not so neglected after all... "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting" is the work of the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. The holy Church, the communion with those Christians who are now with us, and those who have gone before us, the forgiveness of sins, the life giving resurrection of the body in the last day, and life eternal, are works of the Holy Spirit within the triune Godhead.

We are the church. We are a community of flesh and blood that is called by God to do his work in the world as the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit is God's life within us and among us, breathed into us by the Father and the Son. The biggest problem I have with that idea is that the church is so sinful and fails often. Of course, when I feel that way about the church, I forget that, I too, fail and sin often. We have this sort of Gnostic heresy as Christians generally, and Protestants particularly, that somehow being a body of flesh is bad. The only hope we have is to survive in this world, keep the faith, and wait for a better world as spirits in heaven. There are several problems with this idea. Note how much human flesh is important in the creed. We say that the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, was "born of the Virgin Mary". That shook many people who heard the original message of the church, in the words of the Nicene Creed; Christ was "incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary". It was a scandal to many that God would come in human flesh, and incarnate means just that, of a human mother. Human flesh was honored to have God incarnate as one of us. Life in this world is not seen as bad, but a gift from God. Further, Jesus was bodily raised. A lot of people when I was in seminary felt that it was more intellectually pleasing and more scientifically plausible to say Jesus was spiritually raised and not bodily raised. Well, the Gospels go to great lengths to deny Jesus is a ghost, a spirit without body, and affirm he was raised and ascended in a human body, albeit glorified. Also, from a scientific point of view there is no more absolute scientific evidence for a ghost than a dead person rising from the grave. It is not anymore intellectually honest to believe in one form or the other. Jesus is raised in the flesh. Without that, the Gospel is out the window. Also, the Creed says we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Note that, while we may be spirits sustained by God's power and in his presence after death, that is not the final and perfect form of humanity. Rising as human flesh at the last day is our final state.

I also questioned why Jesus' teachings were not emphasized as important in the Creed, as if they did not matter. What I learned also applies to the shorter articles concerning the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Creed put emphasis on the areas of controversy, and Jesus' coming in the flesh and dying like all humans were areas of controversy. Jesus’ teachings, the Father creating the world, and the Holy Spirit sustaining it were not areas of controversy. So, it is assumed that the work of the Holy Spirit is to glorify the Father and the Son, and to empower us to live and obey the will of God, as Jesus revealed it. Without the Spirit, scripture says, we cannot even say "Jesus is Lord", our saving confession.

What does all this heavy theology mean? First, God affirms our life in the world and in our own humanity. This life is not "hell" while we wait in this supposedly "horrible" world for a better heaven. In fact, God has given us life physically and spiritually as a gift. God has chosen to become flesh in Jesus Christ to be like us, so that we may grow into what God wants us to be. We have not yet fully become what God intends for us, but that does not mean God cannot use us in this world. In fact, life is so good that, in the resurrection, Jesus extended its bounds for eternity. Yes, we fail. Yes we are sinful. By the power of the Holy Spirit, God raises us up again, and again. Far from saying "this world is not my home" and perhaps "this body is not me". We are saying this life in the world, with all our sinfulness and failures, and with all the pains we suffer, is good and we have a mission here and now. As Pentecost comes again, when we mark the Holy Spirit being breathed on the Church, let us rejoice in the gift of life and resurrection power given us by the Source of life itself. This is a life that will one day transform this world. THAT is Good News!

In The Spirit's Love and Power,
Jim

What Happens When You Miss Church!

In the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of John, Thomas, one of Jesus' disciples, missed the gathering of the apostles on Easter evening after the resurrection. He missed a lot. The reports of Jesus' empty tomb, and of his being seen alive and risen, were coming in. A wonder, bewilderment, and excitement came over the young faith community that was to become the Christian Church. Thomas missed it. The natural fear and depression of what happened on Good Friday still haunted him, and the real threat of what could happen to him perhaps also caused him to go into hiding. When told the Lord had risen again, he said he would not believe it and said he would not believe it unless he saw the nail prints in Jesus' hands and his wounded side. The next Sunday he gathers with the apostles and Jesus comes in and shows Thomas his wounded hand and side. He tells Thomas to "be not faithless, but believing". Thomas has been called by many since that time, "doubting Thomas". A "doubting Thomas" now is anyone who does not believe in the face of evidence, a skeptic. So, we have branded this brave apostle and martyr for Christ by this one incident. This Thomas who was the first person in the Gospels to address Jesus with a full confession of faith, "My Lord, and my God"! Thomas like most modern people was naturally skeptical of the idea that a dead man had been raised. Wouldn't you be skeptical? He is branded by his worst moment. Sometimes we are too, but it really is not fair. The writer of John is trying to tell us something about belief in the risen Christ, not about the supposed sin of doubt.

Where is Thomas when he remains in doubt? He is by himself, lost and alone. Where is he when he comes to make the full confession of faith? He is with the community of faith, and there in the presence of the risen Christ. That is what the Gospel writers want us to know about how the risen Christ is experienced. In our evangelical culture, we have come to emphasize a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ". The individual and God in relationship has come, in the view of some Protestants, to be what faith is about. Some will actually tell you that is all the faith is about which, from a Reformed perspective, is not the case. John's story of Thomas, as Christ’s with other appearances of Christ in the other Gospels, always show the risen Christ present in the community of faith. It is the community in which the risen Christ is primarily seen as risen. That is important for us. While Reformed Christians differ with some others in saying that the institutional form of the church is the same as the "church invisible" of believers, we do believe that the community of faith is the primary way we know the risen Christ.

Does this mean we are saved by the church? I don't think so as a Protestant Christian. What John IS saying to us is that, when we isolate ourselves from the believing community, we remain in our doubts and fears. It is the strength we draw, by the power of the Holy Spirit, from the risen Christ's presence among us that strengthens our faith and makes it possible to fully confess Christ as Lord. So, while going to Church does not save us in our Reformed understanding of faith, it is still where we hear the Gospel, share in the risen Christ as his risen community, and grow. So, the personal relationship is important. It is central to our salvation, and it comes through the command of Christ in the community of faith. When we gather as Central, we do not gather as 90 saved individuals, but as one body. We are part of each other. So, when you miss church you miss the risen Christ. You may feel some mornings that you miss little when you miss church; it is just the same old thing. In fact, many churches feel that they have to fill every moment with excitement in worship to keep folks coming. However, what we miss church, we cut ourselves off from other believers, and we misss Christ's presence in his body the Church. That presence is quite exciting to me. I hope it is to you also. It is something to think about when we feel we can go it alone in matters of faith.

In Christ's Risen Service,
Jim
Soli Deo Gloria

The Stories That Define Us

We all have stories that define who we are, where we think we have been, where we are, and where we believe we are going. We have them as a nation. Our stories about our country’s wars, our country’s values, our country’s foundations, all define who we are and how we act as a nation. Our stories of our denominations define our religious point of view. Our stories of ourselves define who we are and what we think about ourselves and others. Since our lives are lived in the forward progression of time, we create stories in our living. We have funny stories, tragic stories, stories of wrongs done us and wrongs we may have done. The question is, are these stories accurate reflections of the truth of our lives, and how to they relate to the larger story of our faith.

The Church year tells the story of Jesus, who is the Lord and Savior of the world. We are about to begin the Lenten season again. This season can seem somewhat dark as it ends in seeming tragedy, then suddenly we find Christ is raised. Shouldn’t we just ignore the dark part of the story and go straight to the happy joy of the empty tomb? Why the journey of the cross? Well it is part of the story. It reminds us that we are people whose life stories do not always live up to the call of God in Christ. We have heard that call and been saved by God’s grace. We know sin is part of our story, but God’s work in us raising us from death to life is the ultimate story of faith. Therefore we can look at the story of how we have lived and acknowledge that our story includes those elements of our lives that were less than our call as Christians. We can repent and turn back to God and prepare to be renewed. The Lenten season is not some kind of sadistic season in which we grovel before a tyrant God. It is a joining of our story to the story of Christ who loved us, gave himself for us, and made new life possible in the ultimate renewal of his resurrection. How does your story compare to the story of Christ?

None of us can live his perfect and sinless life. That is the point of this penitential season. However, we can look to him, turn back to him, and bring the stories of our lives more into alignment with the call he has made to us. Lent is a time of turning back to Christ, of giving ourselves to him in love and service, because he gave himself to us. It is a time to remember that our lives are short and, for our own sakes and the work of God’s Kingdom we are called to renewal. Let Lent be a time of reflection about how the story of your life ties in to the grand story of redemption God is working the world. You are a part of that. We are not condemned, but loved beyond measure. Repentance in its root meaning in Hebrew is “to turn back”. Let us turn again to him, that his story may be ours, that his life in us may renew us and the world around us. We then will find our stories merging with other Christians and with Christ’s own story as we become his instruments of love in the world.

Expectations

What do you expect? One might hear that negatively, such as when someone fails to meet expectations and someone says it implying the person is not capable of much anyway, a sort of put down. One might hear it when someone asks for or prays for something unrealistic and another says it to them as a response, implying that you expect too much. Neither of these are very flattering usages, but what we expect is important. We can have negative expectations, or positive ones. Often our expectations cause us to behave in ways that will make the expected positive or negative outcome happen. Expectations are powerful for they shape who we are and how we respond to the world. They can affect how our children feel about themselves and whether they grow up to be positive or negative in their self-assessment and their reaction to the people around them, and the world at large. Sometimes, our religious beliefs and expectations can enhance our work in the world for God, and sometimes they can hinder it. Advent shows both sides of the issue of Advent expectation.

Some folk had certain expectations of what the Messiah would do. Most Jewish people expected, and some still expect, a Messiah that will politically liberate the people and teach them the way of God. It is the message of the Gospel that the people missed the Messiah because of their expectations; they were programmed to look elsewhere and did not see what God was doing in one tiny corner in a manger in Bethlehem. Caesar Augustus commanded and all the Roman World came to be taxed. The King Jesus had only a manger as a throne. Only his humble family, low status shepherds, and gentile Magi were open to God's possibilities. What do you expect? Will it cause you not to see God's coming in your life and in our world?

The other side of expectation is shown by those very people. Mary believes what the angel has said, risking even death by stoning for having a child out of wedlock. She says "Be it done to me according to your word". She is open to God's possibilities even when they are not according to accepted expectations, and even involve personal risk for her. Joseph risks social humiliation. Just when he is going to end the betrothal, an angel speaks to him in a dream to tell him to marry Mary because her child, the Coming One, is the work of God and is God's Son. Joseph accepts the message with the expectation that God is sovereign and can operate as God wills. The shepherds lived on the margins of society and they are open to hearing the angel’s message and responding by going and greeting the new born King. The Magi were high ranking astrologers, most likely in the Persian royal court. They are gentiles and therefore outcasts, and they practice fortune telling, an art forbidden in Jewish Law. Yet they are open to God's call to go on the long journey to find the infant King.

What does this tell us? Well, in a way it tells us to be open to all of God's possibilities. If our faith is so rigid it blinds us to God’s actions, something is wrong. In effect we are telling God that he must perform to our interpretation of his will. The result is that we may miss God's work entirely. It tells us that even religion can cause us to miss God. Many folks now think they know EXACTLY how Jesus will come back and when. The expectations are so rigid that it may cause them to miss what God is doing in the world now. Some of our Christian people have such narrow expectations about how God acts and through whom, that they can miss unexpected places in which God is working. Our God is a God of surprises. It makes faith alive with expectation. Sometimes our very faith, when too narrowly defined, can cause us to be spiritually asleep. The life of faith is intended to be alive with excitement. I wonder how many of us expect God's coming, not just at the end of time, but today. “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

As Advent dawns with Christmas soon to follow, what attitudes keep you from seeing Christ's coming? Where do you expect to see Christ today? Maybe a more important question would be, where are you not expecting to see God today? It may be just at that point where God is speaking to you. Think about it as we make the journey to the manger. Live in expectation, not just of Christ's coming at the end of time, but his coming today. Christ is here! "Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free"!

In Expectation,
Jim Stahr