4  John the Baptizer appeared in the desert.  He was announcing a baptism of repentance, to forgive sins.  5The whole of Judaea, and everyone who lived in Jerusalem, went out to him; they confessed their sins and were baptized by him in the river Jordan.  6  John wore camel-hair clothes, with a leader belt round his waist.  he used to eat locusts and wild honey.  

7  Someone a lot stronger than me is coming close behind’, John used to tell them.  ‘I don’t deserve to squat down and undo his sandals.  I’ve plunged you in the water; he’s going to plunge you in the holy spirit.’  9  This is how it happened.  Around that time, jesus came from nazareth in Galilee, and was baptized by John in the river Jordan.

-Mark 1:1-9

Today is Ash Wednesday.  Ash Wednesday is a time to confess and repent of our sins.  N.T. Wright writes, “We sometimes think of repentance as going back: going back wearily, to the place you went wrong, finally making a clean break of it, and then hoping you can start again.  Well, that may be how it feels sometimes, and Ash Wednesday is no bad time to face up to such a moment if it’s got to be done.  But John’s message of repentance was essentially forward-looking.  God’s doing a new thing, so we have to get ready!”

As we begin this Lenten journey today, let us trust and believe that God is doing a new thing and we must get ready.  By looking back on our sins and repenting we have the clean slate needed to move toward the new thing God is doing.

Action:  Attend an Ash Wednesday service today and repent of your sins.

Prayer:  God, I believe you are doing a new thing this Lenten season.  Prepare the way for me to receive you into my heart and my life as I watch for you this Easter.  Amen.

by Daniel Harrell

Last Sunday was like one of those bad movie sequels, like Another 48 Hours, or The Next Karate Kid. You sat there and thought: haven’t I seen this already? The same plot? The same players? The same ending? How can this be happening—again? Somehow you hoped things might turn out differently this time. Its not often you get a second chance, such a textbook set-up for redemption. But there it was, only to be squashed by a furious rally. By a miraculous catch. By a mediocre effort at stopping the inevitable. It ends up like just you knew it would, but you still can’t believe it. It makes you so mad that you’re awake the rest of the night. That’s right, I’m talking about Jonah. (What did you think I was talking about?) God directly orders Israel’s prophet to the pagan city of Nineveh, the capital of enemy Assyria, to warn them of their looming doom. Jonah refuses—the only prophet ever to be so brazen—or so brainless. He tries to escape at sea, but God rallies in furious fashion, sending a vicious storm that forces Jonah to go three and out—of the boat. Then comes the miraculous catch—into the mouth of a fish—compelling Jonah to follow the game plan this time, which he does in defeated fashion. He has to deliberately let the other team score, and then bury his head on the sideline to await the final whistle.

Jonah’s story is one of unwelcome grace. The prophet wanted the Lord of Glory to bear his Old Testament teeth, to rise up in wrath against the odious Ninevites, the epitome of all evil. Drop the heavenly hammer, Sodom and Gomorrah style. Rain down some hellfire and brimstone. Plague and pestilence. But instead, way ahead of schedule, God showed his New Testament side and sent showers of blessing instead. He did as Jesus will describe him doing in the Sermon on the Mount, he “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous alike.” In response to Nineveh’s repentance, the Lord changed his mind and relented from meting out judgment. God’s anger was stopped; but Jonah was just getting warmed up.

The prophet is livid: “I knew you’d be gracious!” he yells as he prays. “I knew you’d be merciful! I knew you’d be slow to anger and abounding in love, that you’d forgive anybody who wants it and would change your mind about sending punishment!” As it turns out, the Old Testament God has a soft spot for contrite sinners too. Jonah labels Yahweh as “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, who relents from sending calamity,” but it’s not a characterization he comes up with all on his own. It’s the way the Lord is described in Exodus, in Nehemiah, in the Psalms and on the lips of the prophet Joel too. When extended to Jonah, God’s grace and mercy made him thankful. But when given to the Ninevites, it just made him mad. Their reputation was as a “a city of bloodshed, full of lies and never without victims.” So what that they repented? People repent all the time, and then after they get their forgiveness, they just go back to doing what they were going to do anyway. Who says that Nineveh won’t return to their murderous ways once they’ve been spared? How can God be so naïve? So soft? So unfair? So unjust? “You’re killing me Lord! Killing me! If your intent is to let evildoers off the hook, then you might as well just take my life and kill me now. It is better for me to die than to live.”

OK, so maybe Jonah is being a little melodramatic. Still, talking about loving your enemies does bring out the drama. Whenever I’m teaching the Sermon on the Mount, like I was doing this past Wednesday night, and get to that part about not retaliating against evildoers and all that turning the other cheek and going the extra mile ridiculousness, the knee-jerk reaction, like Jonah’s, is to immediately object and complain about God’s abdication of justice and about our having to be doormats for the Lord. We roll out the serial rapists and the pedophiles and the repeat drunk drivers and Hitler, and how since nobody could ever be expected to forgive them, how dare Jesus expect us to forgive your own enemies—you know, the rude co-workers, or the insulting neighbors, the customers who stiff you, or the relatives who still owe you money? Sure, Jesus only commands us to turn our heads a little, part with a shirt and walk a few thousand feet more, but why would you ever do that for somebody who’s being a jerk? Oh, and then knowing he’s already asking the impossible, Jesus loads on the guilt, telling us to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,” as if your own parents weren’t demanding enough.

As we sit there and stew in our self-justifying juices, God’s question to Jonah becomes his question to us: “Is it right for you to be angry?”

It’s a question that’s left to dangle as chapter 4 goes on to indulge in a bit of a flashback. You’ll remember from last Sunday how Jonah’s token obedience resulted in a short, single sentence sermon: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” The prophet didn’t mention God once. He said nothing about the possibility of grace or any need to repent or any invitation to reform, all on purpose. He skipped the closing hymn and gave no benediction, no hope for any salvation. And then as fast as he could, lest the Lord send some other beast to bite him, he got out of town, shaking the dust off his feet as he went. He secured a perch overlooking the city and set up a temporary shelter, a prime spot from which to view what was sure to be a brimstone blowout. But to everyone’s shock, the Ninevites took Jonah seriously. His sermon set off a stampede of shame and repentance with the entire city stripping down to sackcloth, wallowing in ashes and fasting from all food and drink. It was an unmistakable plea for mercy to a deity they did not even know. And so that their ashen appeal wouldn’t be mistaken as a piety show, they stopped doing their evil and turned from all the violence and injustice of which they were guilty. And they did all of this without any grace guarantee. Lamented their contrite king, “Who knows whether this God will change his mind and pull back his wrath so that we do not perish.”

This being a flashback, Jonah is not yet aware of the Ninevites’ overwhelming reaction to his sermon. He does not yet know that God has accepted their corporate apology, honored their change of behavior and canceled the fireworks. Due to Jonah’s temper, the Lord decides to break the news to him gently. He sends Jonah a houseplant. A fast-growing Jack-in-the-beanstalk that provides additional shade for Jonah’s vigil of vengeance. The plant puts Jonah in a very good mood—it’s the first time we’ve ever seen the prophet smile. But then the Lord sends in a weevil with explicit instructions to chew through the plant and wither Jonah’s leafy canopy. After that the Lord sends a burning hot wind and jacks up Jonah’s discomfort. God does unto the plant what Jonah wants done unto the Ninevites. How does the prophet like his theology now? “Is it right for you to be angry—about a houseplant?” asks the Lord, loading his question this time with a tangible illustration. The heat getting to him, Jonah is in no mood to learn anything. His melodrama reignites. “Yes I have a right to be angry!” he screams, “I’m angry enough to die!”

What Jonah needs is a good therapist. Some pastoral perspective. Let’s analyze it: He’s mad about a football game—I mean a houseplant. Here today and gone tomorrow. It’s not like it would have made a contribution to world peace or eliminating poverty or reducing climate change. It’s just a football game. I mean a college basketball game. I mean a houseplant! It has no impact on the health of my family, my job satisfaction, the happiness of my marriage, my relationship with my friends. So why do I care? Why do I lay awake night and obsess over the one or two plays that could have totally changed the outcome? Need I be so upset? So devastated? Must I bear my teams’ defeat like some indelible sports tattoos, rubbing my grief in my face and until I die? If I must care so much and be so distraught by something intended solely for my entertainment, something for which I did nothing but sit passively and watch on TV while eating buffalo wings and swilling beer, then why can’t God care about this great city with 120,000 actual living, breathing people locked in their sin and self-destruction who know not what they do nor how to be saved from it? And their animals too? “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?” Jesus asked, “Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. And you are of more value than many sparrows.”

The conclusion to Jonah is often used as motivation for mission, specifically urban mission. Half the world now lives in cities, from culture shapers, next generations and immigrants to the poorest of the poor. Christians are called to care about cities like God cares about cities, which is what motivates Colonial Church to partner with city ministry organizations like Community Emergency Services, Families Moving Forward, Young Life and Calvary Baptist Church among others. There are close to 10,000 homeless children in Minneapolis, half of them under age six. 23% of the city’s population lives below the poverty line. Perhaps this makes you mad. If so, get mad enough to do something about it. Compassion is a good way to channel your anger. Unfortunately for Jonah, compassion was what made him angry. God’s grace ticked him off.

Our Wednesday night study prayed for the family of Ann Blake this week, the mother of two middle school children who was struck and killed on a Maple Grove sidewalk as she waited to cross the street. She was hit by a car whose driver had a blood-alcohol level twice the legal limit as well as an empty vodka bottle in her vehicle. Police were already tailing the driver at the time of the wreck, after receiving a report of erratic driving. Ann Blake’s twin children, one of whom is autistic, are orphans now. Their father died just four months prior, following a year long bout with cancer. Both parents were active in their Lutheran church and helped with Bible school and were advocates for children with autism. It’s unspeakably tragic. We shake our heads at the senselessness, and we shake our fists at heaven demanding to know why God keeps letting such horrible things happen. But what really enrages us is the fact that this drunk driver gets to go on living her life; that she may even find her way to some kind of redemption. And not only does God allow it, but he loves and cares for her too. And far worse than all that, God insists that I care. That I even go so far as to forgive her. That I “be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect.” Jesus! That is so infuriating!

Let’s analyze our anger just a little bit more. If ever you’ve found yourself in the same boat with Jonah—or in the same fish or under the same houseplant—ask yourself this: Are you mad because your faith cramps your lifestyle and places insufferable restraints on your true identity? Or are you mad because your Christian faith is your true identity, and what’s insufferable is your constant failure and refusal to live it out. In other words, are you mad because you feel repressed by being a good Christian, or because you feel frustrated for being a bad Christian? If my question still confuses you, try an experiment. In the next two weeks leading into Lent, take the first week and be as uninhibited and as shamefully abrasive as you dare to be within the law. Forget Jesus and the kingdom of God. Most of all, forget that other people have feelings. Just care about your feelings and then act on those feelings. Lean into your indignation. Be a savage.

Then take the second week and try as hard as you can to be as perfectly Christian as you know how to be. Show as much indifference to other people’s rudeness and insults and you showed for their feelings the week before. Don’t be pious, just live out the gospel in as bold and as loving a way as your imagination allows. Do what’s right and responsible and honoring to God with all the character, integrity, generosity and prayerful humility you can muster. Be a saint.

At the end of your two weeks, ask yourself the following: Which approach to life is the true you? The answer will probably be both.

Fury and faith are not necessarily mutually exclusive categories. Herein lies the mystery of the cross. It is through the injustice and through the anger that compassion and grace finally come. If by anger we mean that unleashed, impassioned and savage hostility against those people and circumstances which violate, offend, frustrate, threaten, endanger or impede; then the cross of Jesus must be viewed as the anger of God in its truest expression. The sin Jesus bore—of which we all share guilt—brought down the full and just fury of heaven. Moreover, if by grace we mean that unleashed love and compassion for those people who do not deserve it and yet understand that they need it and are dead without it, then the cross of Jesus must be viewed as the grace of God in its truest expression too. God channels his righteous anger into compassion for sinners. He so loves the world that his gives his own Son to die and rise for it, forgiving a world that knows not what they do, making it so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish, but can permanently live a life of grace and compassion themselves. To be perfect like their Father in heaven who makes them perfect.

The family of Ann Blake released a statement upon learning about the drunk driver’s alcohol levels. “This information at least provides closure as to the cause. Nothing can bring Ann back or erase the pain that everyone who was close to her has felt for the last week,” it read. And then they added, “We believe in forgiveness and grieve for the driver and for her family just as we grieve for the loss of Ann.”

Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel observes how “God’s answer to Jonah, stressing the supremacy of compassion, upsets the possibility of looking for a rational coherence of God’s ways with the world. History would be more intelligible if God’s word were the last word, final and unambiguous like a dogma or an unconditional decree. It would be easier if God’s anger became effective automatically: once wickedness had reached its full measure, punishment would destroy it.

“Yet, beyond justice and anger,” indeed even through justice and anger, “lies the mystery of compassion;” the mystery of the cross.

While it didn’t make me a perfect parent, it helped relieve my tendency towards fear-based, reactive parenting. So much of good parenting is about holding yourself together and not reacting, either to the expectations of others or your own internal insecurities.

Parents are particularly good at making one another feel insecure. “You’re choosing to do what with your infant? Well, I’ve heard that… “ And the expert advice begins. With expert information being passed around like a preschool cold virus, it’s no wonder we lose confidence in what little parenting intuition we thought we had.

Today, we chauffeur our children from hockey coaches to piano teachers to tutors and back again. We’re used to looking to the expert for almost everything in this awesome responsibility of raising children. In the process, we worry that we aren’t doing everything we could for our kids. At times, we wonder if we’ve ruined them completely. A lot of our parental energy is expended seeking advice and then being afraid we aren’t following it.

But perfect love cast out all fear. 1 John 4:18.

Let me put your mind at ease. God is with you, in the messy reactive stuff of parenting and in the fearful.

He is with you to sort out your own stuff and to remind you that you are loved. Even when you make that reactive choice to yell at your kids and feel sure that you have consigned them to a lifetime of therapy, He is with you. When you can live securely in His love, you love your children better.

He is with you when the expectations of being a 21^st century parent overwhelm you. Instead of worrying what others think, choose to make God your Audience of One. It really only matters that you follow His lead. After all, He knows you and your children best and He loves you always.

We welcome all to join us on Sundays for worship. We have two worship services on Sunday, 9:00 am Traditional and 10:45 am Contemporary. We hope you join us!

This Sunday February 26

Daniel Harrell is preaching. Scripture is from Mark 10:17-31.

Next Sunday March 4

Daniel Harrell is preaching. Scripture is from Mark 12:1-12.

Youth Programs Offered on Sundays

CRASH AM
9:00 am and 10:45 am, Pond Room
Students are welcome during EITHER service in the Pond Room for a time just for them! We will dig deep into the Bible, play games and even have some bagels!

Children’s Programs Offered on Sundays

We offer a full range of excellent programming for kids from birth through 5th grade during worship services. Nursery is provided for children birth through 23 months in the Nursery Hallway. Preschoolers, two through five years old, participate in age-appropriate learning in Stepping Stones down the Nursery Hallway. Elementary kids, Kindergarten through fifth grade, gather down the elementary hallway for FaithTrek. Parents can check in their kids up to ten minutes before each worship service.

Sunday Morning, 9:00 am
Nursery for babies, birth – 23 months
Stepping Stones for preschoolers, 2 – 5 years
FaithTrek for elementary kids, Kindergarten – 5th Grade

Sunday Morning, 10:45 am
Nursery for babies, birth – 23 months
Stepping Stones for preschoolers, 2 – 5 years
FaithTrek for elementary kids, Kindergarten – 5th Grade
Elementary kids are dismissed from the worship service

To speed up the process on Sunday morning, click here to register.

Wednesday, February 22, 7:00 pm, Meetinghouse
Join us as we begin our Lenten journey together. This worship gathering will be led by our pastoral team and the Colonial Chamber Singers singing James Whitbourn’s “Son of God Mass” featuring Charles Forsberg on the organ and guest artist Kevin Gosa on soprano saxophone. The musical worship backdrop will serve as a liturgical guide through the service of scripture, song, and the imposition of ashes. Daniel Harrell will preach from the Gospel of Mark.

There will be no Wednesday Night Live, all activities resume on February 29.

by Daniel Harrell

The closest I’ve ever come to wearing sackcloth was the last time the Patriots played the New York Football Giants in the Super Bowl. Overconfident in the undefeated Patriots’ ability to fend off all comers, I rashly wagered with a loudmouth Giants fan that New England would mercilessly mow down her boys in blue as with every other team they’d rolled over that season. Gathered among the faithful to witness what I believed to be the inevitable Super Bowl night, we were joined in disbelief at Eli Manning’s escape and David Tyree’s ridiculous helmet aided catch. Clearly the Lord’s hand was in it. Following the humiliating loss, I penitently paid my bet. I covered myself with a Giants hat and jersey—sackcloth and ashes for any Bostonian—walked the streets of Boston and loudly professed  my love for New York, much to the derision of my fellow New Englanders. On the one hand I deserved the disgrace on account my hubris and misplaced faith. But on the other hand, my display was a hopeful prayer for a second chance, an opportunity for redemption and maybe even revenge. Tonight is that second chance.

For the overconfident King of Nineveh here in Jonah, potentate of pagan Assyria, the Bill Belichick of the ancient Near East, the prediction of his nation’s pending upset to underdog Israel elicited immediate—remorse! The king “rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.” For this pagan king to offer such a shame-filled display in response to the words of an insufferable Hebrew prophet before the game had even been played was nothing short of remarkable—so remarkable that Jesus would commend its virtue centuries later as an indictment against Israel’s own arrogance. Not only did the Assyrian King repent, but all of Nineveh reformed their behavior, turned from their evil ways and from the violence and injustice of which they were guilty. And this without any guarantee of mercy. The king prayed to a deity he did not recognize—referring to God with the Hebrew generic elohim. “Who knows” said the king, “this God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”

Of course for those who did know the Lord, who knew elohim to be Yahweh, the idea that he should ever change his mind was absurd. As the Reformer John Calvin would later assert, any suggestion that the Lord would change his mind or relent (or as the King James so boldly puts it, repent) would imply that “either the Lord is ignorant of what is going to happen, or cannot escape it, or hastily and rashly rushes into a decision.” The Bible unambiguously declares in Numbers 23 that “God is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?” Likewise in 1 Samuel 15: “The Glory of Israel will not recant or repent; for he is not a human, that he should change his mind.” The problem, of course, is that God does repent and change his mind. He does it in Genesis where He repents of having made people. He does it in Exodus where he changes his mind about destroying the golden calf-loving Israelites. Likewise with the prophets Joel and Amos, God changes his mind about his plans for his people. Even in 1 Samuel 15 where the Lord says he doesn’t repents he repents over having made Saul the first king of Israel.

If such change of heart on the Lord’s part bothers you (and as we will see it clearly bothered Jonah), it may be because you project too much of your own manner onto God. We quickly think of all the times we change our own minds—times that usually have to do with poor decision-making skills, lack of information, fear, anxiety or sin—none of which characterize God. “God is not a human, that he should change his mind” should be understood as “God does not change his mind like we humans do.” Unlike humans, God does not say one thing and then do another, nor does he change his mind for frivolous reasons or for no reason at all. God is not capricious or arbitrary but consistent and reliable—and he never changes in regard to his dependability or character. As the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the Word Made Flesh in Christ and the Holy Spirit who dwells in his people, the Lord is reliably personal and consistently loving. He is eager for relationship and therefore always responsive.

Because God loves us, he responds to our repentance and relents from allowing us what our deeds deserve. He is patient with us, creating space for the experience of relationship on our part, for the awareness of our need and for the necessity of our humility and surrender to his mercy. The long-suffering nature of God makes possible a new beginning after every personal disaster and failure. “God is patient with you,” the apostle Peter wrote, “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

This is good news for sinners—not so good for those sinned against. This will be Jonah’s gripe. Nineveh was a nation devoted to violence and murder. The prophet Nahum labeled it “a city of bloodshed, full of lies and never without victims.” How can wearing sackcloth and ashes and promising to do better suffice for years of brutality? What if Syria’s current President Assad and his henchmen suddenly stopped killing their citizens and said they were sorry? Does everything revert back to normal as if nothing happened? What about the abusers in your own life? Saying “sorry” and promising not to do it again may be enough for God, but what about you? I remember a woman once narrating for me a horrific history of her own violation, sins she simply could not and would not forgive. If granting grace to her abuser was what it meant to follow the Lord, then she could not follow the Lord. True, God had forgiven her sins and shown her grace to be sure; but her sins unto others were in no way as heinous as what had been done unto her. “I need a God who gets even,” she said, “The angry and vengeful God is a God I can obey.”

That God was so merciful would be why Jonah found obedience so impossible. The Lord ordered the prophet to Nineveh to warn them their days were numbered—in effect to give them one more chance. But Jonah, the only prophet ever to disobey a direct order, ran away in the opposite direction. He boarded a boat headed for the other end of the earth, but he could not hide from God. The Lord furiously bombarded his boat with a ferocious storm. Recognizing his own days to be numbered now, Jonah gave up, but he didn’t give in. He went overboard, willing to drown rather than do as he was told. But God would not let Jonah off the hook so easily. Making him into whale bait, God had a great fish eat Jonah alive and then puke him up onto the beach. And when Jonah came to, God issued his order again: “Get up, go to Nineveh and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” It’s almost word for word with the command in chapter 1, except that here the main Hebrew verb “proclaim” carries a more positive tone, denoting a call to repentance and deliverance. God is going to give the Assyrians a break and Jonah simply can’t stand it.

And yet maybe because three days in the belly of a fish in the middle of the ocean was as bad as it sounds, Jonah complies, albeit with the smallest amount obedience he can get away with. He trudges into Nineveh and delivers a one sentence sermon. Five words in Hebrew that translate to eight in English: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Jonah doesn’t mention God once. Nevertheless, these minimal words were more than enough, causing a stampede of repentance—an altar call on steroids—which has presented a challenge to long-winded preachers ever since. Like the pagan sailors on Jonah’s boat, the pagan Ninevites were better at being chosen people than the chosen people. The Ninevites took Jonah more seriously than the God’s people would ever take Jeremiah or Joel or Amos or Jesus. When Jeremiah brought them bad news, they had him locked him up. When Jesus did the same, they him strung him up. It’s hard to see your enemies offered grace. Harder still is to have it offered to you. An offer of grace presumes that you need it.

Jonah preached during a politically prosperous time for ancient Israel. They were living the dream of favored-nation status—strong and rich—so much so that they grew complacent and started to gloat. They confused God’s glory for their own and hogged it all for themselves. Jonah breathed in this air of superiority, figuring with the rest of God’s people, that the favor of the Lord was what they deserved. The last thing he wanted was for the despicable Assyrians to have a seat at the same table. God knows they deserved nothing but ruin.

I’m teaching a class up at Bethel Seminary this quarter on the topic of Theology and American Culture. Of course, a better title for the class might be Theologies and American Cultures, given the reality of pluralism in our country. It wasn’t always like this. We hear politicians pine for a “Christian America,” a nostalgic time when, culturally speaking, faith in Jesus was practically inevitable. It was a time when everyone affirmed the same religious values, spoke the same religious language, understood all the religious symbols and had their religious beliefs buttressed by social practices and mores woven into everyday life. Sure there were other cultures around, but they all just melted into the pot. These days, what with the expansive growth of cities and urbanization, with stunning advances in travel and technology bringing with it exposure to so many different cultures and ideas, religious belief is no longer the status quo. The Melting Pot has become more of a Super Bowl Party Buffet, a pluralistic smorgasbord of distinctive flavors and tastes. The buffalo wings share top billing with the guacamole and the fried mozzarella. There’s not really a main dish anymore.

By 2050, America will be a country with no ethnic majority. As we discussed the implications of this in my seminary class, it was clear that Christianity would be changing too. We had Korean-American Professor Soong-Chan Rah as our guest in class this week—speaking to us via Skype from Chicago on his Smartphone (talk about stunning technological advances). He noted how when current majority-culture Christians describe theological perspectives different from their own, they’ll use labels such as Asian theology or black theology or liberation theology. But when speaking of their own theology they just say theology—this despite the phenomenal growth of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, numeric growth that has already lapped Christianity in the West. He called this labeling the bitter fruit of the church’s “western white cultural captivity.” He said it’s the cause of the American church being so individualistic and so commercially materialistic and so morally accommodating to popular culture. Professor Rah then went on to ask why in a day when white Christians jump into the political fray over all sorts of issues with little Biblical precedent, we remain comparably hesitant when it comes to caring for immigrants and aliens, which the Bible promotes over and over again. Professor Rah proposed that the reason for the silence on immigration from white churches is because white people are afraid of a nonwhite America and a nonwhite Christianity.

Naturally I and my class of snow white Minnesotans were duly offended. Were we being called racists? At a seminary? As budding young pastors and prophets for the Lord? And yet even being a prophet of God was no guarantee against fear and disgust toward those unlike himself. Jonah hated the Assyrians. The last thing he wanted was for them to show up in his country or at his church or at his table. So what they wear burlap and say the right words, so what that they turn from their evil—who’s to say that once they’ve been spared they don’t go back to their vicious ways? They were that kind of people.

And they were. Within 50 years, the Assyrians would rise up and run over Israel, leveling the Northern Kingdom and carrying its citizenry into exile. And the Lord’s hand was in it. Israel’s complacency and conceit were sins in his sight. God sent Amos and Hosea and told them to knock it off, but they didn’t. And so the Lord announced he would “spare his people no longer.” The repentant Assyrians became the Lord’s ironic instrument of judgment against his unrepentant chosen people. When it comes to his justice, God shows no partiality.

And yet, because God is reliably personal and consistently loving; eager for relationship and therefore always responsive, his anger can be interrupted, halted or completely turned aside. God can change his mind. His love knows no limits—except the limit on those who would despise his love. In their case, divine patience will take the form of waiting for that Day for which evildoers will have piled up their wicked deeds. In an analogous passage from Joel that gets read every Ash Wednesday, the Lord speaks from the verge of his destructive justice and declares that “The day of the LORD is great; it is dreadful. No one can endure it.” “But even now,” declares the LORD, even then with one last gasp, “return to me with all your heart… Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.”

Because God loves us, he responds to our repentance and relents from allowing us what our deeds deserve. He changes his mind. However strictly speaking, even sinners who repent still deserve to be punished. The God who loves cannot abdicate justice. Everything does not revert back to normal as if nothing happened. God’s righteous anger against sin and injustice remains in force, even in the face of forgiveness. It’s what makes grace so scandalous. God’s righteous anger is enforced, only not against the ones who deserve it. Instead, God absorbs his justice onto himself—onto the body and blood of Christ shed for us. And because God loves us, there’s no changing his mind about that.

For middle schoolers, navigating the world of dating can be a huge challenge. There are so many voices surrounding them telling them what to think, feel and believe about love, dating and sexuality. But if recent research is correct in showing how young people reflect the values of their parents, then be encouraged that parents, you have a strong voice here. Your students listen to you and they want to hear from you. Especially about their new favorite topic: the opposite sex.

At some point, likely in the middle school years, your student will begin the delicate life phase of puberty. Those preteen and early teen years will bring about a sudden interest in the opposite sex, and if that freaks you out, you’re not alone. It’s likely that your students won’t know what to think about this newfound interest either!

Our challenge as the church, as adults and parents, is to counter their expectation that we will default to NO regarding this topic. We need to surprise them by affirming that YES, we actually think love, dating, and sex are all pretty great…within moderation intended to honor the value of each person involved.

The truth of the matter is, sexuality is just a part of our human existence. We can’t limit our influence to lowering the value of sex or sexuality so that young people won’t do it. But instead, let us aim to deepen the value of each student as a child of God, so that young people will feel confident in choosing not to rush or misuse this gift from God.

Here are some ideas on where to start:

Have “the talk”… often. It’s awkward, it just is. But by beginning this ongoing conversation you will show your student that you are a safe source of knowledge.

Choose to be an active listener. And then, just listen. You might ask questions like, “Are any of your friends dating?” “What kind of boy/girl are you looking for?” “Is dating important to you?” By continuing to ask questions, you approach the topic in a non-threatening way and your student may even choose one to open up on.

Keep track of their relationships/friendships. Ask students who they spend time with, meet their friends, and know their friend’s curfews.

Use movies, television, and music as an entryway. As you well know, sex is everywhere in media today, but we can use these powerful influencers as tools to begin talking to our young people.

Assist your student in determining appropriate boundaries. Talk with other parents about curfews and expectations regarding appropriate ages to date, etc. Learn from parents who have been there already.

Model your family values through behavior. As you already know and the research verifies, you as parents or key adults in your child’s life, have the largest influence on young people today.
So parents, stepparents, adopted parents, grandparents… keep up the good work!

And of course, I’m always available to talk more about this if you are interested.
-Nicole

Post influenced by D. Scott Miller
Slant33.com

Saturday, February 25, 2:00 pm, Christ Presbyterian Church
Come hear our Colonial Chorale join with other churches choirs. Guest Conductor, Anton Armstrong. Participating Churches: Colonial Church, Cross View Lutheran, St. Stephen’s Episcopal, Good Shepherd Lutheran, Good Samaritan UMC and Christ Presbyterian.

by Daniel Harrell

I was late for last Sunday’s pot luck meeting due to the football game. My years in Boston made me a diehard New England Patriots fan (this despite Bill Belichick’s reputation as the Darth Vader of football). I had planned to set my DVR for the game, but the lure of live TV got the best of me. As most of you know by now, the Baltimore Ravens drove the length of the field in the final minute only to have their Pro Bowl placekicker, Billy Cundiff, shank a 32 yarder (the NFL equivalent of missing a tap-in putt for the championship). As thrilled as I was for the Patriots to win, I admit I felt horrible for Cundiff. I still can’t believe he missed that field goal. Going from hero to goat in a matter of seconds will haunt him the rest of his life. “It’s a kick I’ve made a thousand times,” Cundiff said. “I just went out there and didn’t convert. There’s really no excuse for it.” Not that he didn’t try to find an excuse. By Wednesday he said he’d had to unduly rush onto the field because of a scoreboard “malfunction” at the Patriots’ stadium. Something about how he coordinates his pre-kick routine to the scoreboard and thought it was only third down when in fact it was fourth down. Everyone knows how Belichick Belicheats.

For Cundiff it was what you might call trying to escape the belly of the beast—the beast in his case being the agony of defeat and the pillory of the press. In the case of the prophet Jonah, who missed his field goal on purpose, the beast was a big fish. Like Billy Cundiff, Jonah went from hero to goat in a matter of verses. The Lord ordered the prophet to the vile Assyrian Death Star city of Nineveh to warn them of their pending destruction. But Jonah, the only prophet ever to disobey a direct order from God, fled in the opposite direction. He went down to Joppa and bought a boat headed for Tarshish—the veritable end of the earth in those days. Knowing God as he did, where exactly did Jonah think he could hide? The Lord hurled a hurricane at Jonah’s ship to stop its forward progress. The ship’s pagan sailors, fearing the Lord’s fury, in turn hurled Jonah into the sea to stop the storm. Chapter 1 proved a study of contrasts. The pagan sailors respected the Lord more than Jonah did. They were willing to do whatever God wanted, as soon as they could figure it out. Jonah knew exactly what God wanted, but could not stand to be a part of it. The chapter ended with Jonah in the belly of the beast, setting the scene for one last hurl.

In the Veggie Tales Jonah Movie, this moment is set to music. Jonah is played by an asparagus who ponders his grim fate to the tune of a peppy Newsboys song:

Up to my ears

In bitter tears.

Can’t believe I’ve sunk this low

As I walk the plankton

Inner sanctum.

Got outta Dodge,

Sailed on a bon-less

Bon voyage.

You said North,

I headed South.

Tossed overboard.

Good Lord, that’s a really large mouth… \

I’m sleeping with fishes here,

In the belly of the whale.

I’m highly nutritious here,

In the belly of the whale.

Had the book ended here, you’d conclude that to sleep with fishes is to be digested with them too. It wasn’t enough for disobedient Jonah to drown. Make this the end of the story and the huge fish a shark, and the moral would have been “disobey God and you’re doomed.”

But as we know, what looked like Jonah’s demise was in fact his deliverance. Even though Jonah rejected the Lord and disobeyed his commands, God saved him anyway. The belly of the beast became Jonah’s lifeboat of grace. Now I need to resist getting into the plausibility of whether humans can actually survive being swallowed at sea. I remember one Easter hearing a sermon on Jonah devoted to evidence regarding people who had spent various amounts of time lodged inside sea creatures. The Easter text was from Matthew 12 where Jesus treated Jonah’s travail as a sign of his own: “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.” After that sermon a number of listeners were appalled. They’d brought guests to church only to have the preacher that morning go on and on about how people get eaten by whales and survive? What about a whale’s stomach containing a noxious concoction of highly acidic bile that surely would have consumed Jonah in a matter of hours, not to mention days. Then there’s the likelihood of lost limbs, an open gash or decapitation upon entry due to a whale’s narrow esophagus and many giant, jagged teeth. Is Jesus’ resurrection not hard enough to believe by itself?

The preacher that Easter (not me by the way) used the famous tale of a 19^th century whaler named James Bartley. Bartley was lost overboard in a struggle with a sperm whale but was reportedly found alive in the animal’s stomach when they hauled it aboard minutes later. If it happened to James Bartley it could have happened to Jonah. Unfortunately, evidence—both historical and anatomical—strongly suggests that the Bartley tale was a giant fish story concocted by some sea-faring opportunist eager to generate publicity for a local whale exhibition. The story got passed along to anybody gullible enough to believe it. Christians nevertheless insist that because Jesus treated Jonah literally—comparing his three days in a tomb to Jonah’s three days in a fish—that Jonah had to have been swallowed whole. Does this mean Jonah was dead like Jesus? That would make his regurgitation more like a resurrection. Only God could do that. Which may have been the point.

Jonah definitely considered himself as good as dead. His prayer—a classic Hebrew psalm of thanksgiving—has him descending all the way to the land of the dead. Fleeing God’s command, Jonah first goes down to a ship, and then once overboard, he goes down into the heart of the sea, down through the seaweed that wrapped around his head, down to the roots of the mountains, down the very bottom of the ocean, and ultimately down “to the land”—to the netherworld, to the Pit of Sheol—whose bars closed upon him forever. They say drowning is a horrible way to die. When the first involuntary breath occurs most people are still conscious, which is unfortunate, because the only thing more unpleasant than running out of air is breathing in water. But for Jonah, his consciousness allows him one final plea: “As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came to you.” And God intervenes. “You brought up my life from the Pit.” Jonah’s prayer comes from inside the fish—an underwater grave that would be his salvation. As with Jesus, death was not the last word.

That Jonah would pray is appropriate. Believer or skeptic, we all come to bleak moments when prayer is all we have left. I’m sure that Billy the Kicker said a prayer as that football hooked to the left. I just finished the best-selling book, Unbroken, by Laura Hildebrand of Seabiscuit fame. In it an Olympic miler and World War II bombardier named Louis Zamperini went down with his plane in the Pacific. He floated for almost two months with the two other survivors, living off rainwater and occasional albatrosses that perched on their heads. Never a religious man, Zamperini nevertheless prayed that if God would get him through this, he’d serve him with the rest of his life. Jesus prayed the same sort of thing in Gethsemane, asking that God might save sinners some other way. God’s answers didn’t come as one would want. That kick stayed left. Louis Zamperini was rescued from sea, but his rescuers were Japanese military who tortured him mercilessly until the end of the war. No sooner did Jesus say Amen than Judas showed up with soldiers to betray him. And while Jonah was saved from drowning, it was only so that he could be eaten alive.

To Jonah’s credit he does equate his being devoured with being delivered. With God, like it or not, life usually comes by way of death. You have to lose your life to find it. Thinking about this can be depressing—which led me this week to the existentialist writings of Søren Kierkegaard. I’ll often read Kierkegaard when I’m having a bad day to make sure I milk it for everything it’s worth. Kierkegaard wrote a lot about human despair. He wrote how person who despairs bears all his past problems as the present. Memories haunt and extend their hampering effects into every moment of your existence. It’s what makes despair feel likes it’s going to go on forever. He wrote, “The most painful state of being is thinking about the future—particularly the future you’ll never have.”

Kierkegaard considered despair to be a basic loss of faith; the refusal to trust God. Despair takes two alternative shapes, he said: Either it is “the despair not to will to be oneself;” that is, the loss of will to be the person God calls you to be. Or it is “the despair to will to be oneself;” that is, the defiant, self-sufficient will which disdains the person God calls you to be. The first kind of despair is indifference while the second kind is arrogance. Arrogance cares only for itself while indifference doesn’t care about anything. We see both of these in Jonah. Jonah thanks God for his salvation, but is indifferent toward the pagan sailors who risked their own lives for his. He says no prayers for them. And though Jonah praises the Lord and promises to go to Temple every Sabbath from now on, he arrogantly includes no willingness to repent and go to Nineveh to do what God commanded.

Kierkegaard labeled despair as The Sickness Unto Death, a borrowed and juxtaposed phrase from John’s gospel. Jesus, when told that his friend Lazarus is sick, replies that “this sickness is not unto death.” Of course, Lazarus did die—Jesus even delays going to him to assure that he would. But in dying and then being raised by Jesus, we get a sneak preview of what Kierkegaard calls “the final death of death by death” that would be fully accomplished by Christ on the cross. “I am the resurrection and the life” Jesus said to Lazarus’ sister Martha in her despair, “He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” “This sickness is not unto death,” he said, “but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God might be glorified through it.” You might say the same about Jonah. The last line of his prayer reads “Deliverance belongs to the Lord.” Or another way to put it, “Salvation comes from the Lord.” Either way, there are any number of Hebrew words for salvation or deliverance, but Jonah chooses the word yeshua, the same word given as the name for Jesus—another reason, perhaps, that Jesus, yeshua, ties himself so closely to Jonah.

Faith in Jesus often happens at the outer limits of our effort, in that despair where all we have left is a prayer. Confronted by the failure of own capacity and will, we recognize the necessity of that failure. It is only in failure that a lost creature can be finally found. Faith is the decisive act of surrender; we get up by giving up and giving ourselves over to God. “Those who cling to worthless idols,” Jonah prayed, who put their trust in their own capability and power, “forfeit the grace that could be theirs,” Aware of his utter failure and lostness, Jonah surrenders and is cast into the sea and onto the mercy of God. Though the sailors pitched him overboard, Jonah recognizes that God was really the one who did it. It was God who “engulfed me,” whose “waves and billows swept over me.” It was God who pulled Jonah as low as he could go, to the very Pit of Sheol itself, so that Jonah could fully experience God’s grace and be swallowed by it.

Jonah’s deliverance was itself a miraculous Old Testament sneak preview of Jesus’ resurrection. It was something only prayer could accomplish because it was something only God could do. Faith occurs at the outer limits of our effort, in that despair where all we have left is a prayer. Confronted by the failure of own capacity and will, we recognize the necessity of that failure. It is there that a lost creature can be finally found.

For Louis Zamperini, his return to America after years of Japanese torture brought him a hero’s welcome. But it also brought him financial ruin and a slow descent into depression and alcoholism. It wasn’t until his desperate wife dragged him to a Los Angeles Billy Graham Crusade in the 50s that he remembered his promise to God on that life raft. Finally found by Jesus, Zamperini never took another drink, went on to run a camp for disadvantaged teenagers, and got involved at Hollywood Presbyterian Church where he met our own Dave Williamson. Dave wrote me this week about skiing with Zamperini, about his return to Japan in seek out and forgive his torturers. While in Japan at age 81 Zamperini made it back to the Olympics, running a leg in the Olympic Torch relay for the Nagano Winter Games. Dave says he’s still doing remarkably well at age 95. “Deliverance belongs to the Lord.” In Christ, the lost get found, sinners are redeemed, grace exonerates the guilty, justice comes for the oppressed—and wayward prophets get hurled onto the beach.

Clearly salvation can sometimes be messy. The Veggie Tales movie had Jonah singing as much:

Woke up this morning kinda blue,

Thinking through that age-old question:

How to exit a whale’s digestion?

It might behoove me to be heaved.

Head out like a human comet.

Hmm… I wonder what rhymes with comet?

I couldn’t help but recall Dawn and I flying home one time with Violet standing at our feet on the plane. She turned and gave us that funny look kids get before they throw up all over you. And then she threw up all over us. We still had a couple of hours left in the air. Taking for granted that whale vomit can only be worse than an toddler’s, Jonah had a lot of cleaning up to do. While we can do nothing to earn our salvation, we still must do something to show we’ve received it. Having experienced the deep grace of God, Jonah gets another shot at obedience. Chapter 3 will open with the Lord repeating his command to get up and go to Nineveh. Will Jonah do it? Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “It can be so hard to believe God, because it is so hard to obey God.” May Christ help us do both.

Our group got to tour through an exhibit that portrayed conditions in places like Haiti and India. We learned about poor hospital conditions, the difficulties in getting water, orphanages, hunger, sex trade, and the disproportionate distribution of wealth and resources on our planet. Our problems when compared to these travesties were really put into perspective. Students and adults alike left with a stronger awareness of global poverty, an appreciation of what we have, and a conviction to help and live differently.

We divided into five teams and packed meal bags that were filled with vegetables, vitamins, soy, and rice. Groups created assembly lines that divvied up the various tasks of scooping, weighing, sealing, and packing. With each box holding 36 400 gram bags of food, the group from Colonial was able to fill over 20 boxes.

The overall experience was a good one for everyone involved. The high school group did a Water Project night back in November, where they were able to learn about unclean water facts in other countries, do simulations to understand what it was like to have to gather their own water, calculate their daily water usage, and have the opportunity to share what they’d learned. We also spent a couple of months collecting money that we were able to give to the folks at Impact Lives.

Visit the youth Facebook page for some photos of the event.

A strong team of adults who pour their lives into students is the backbone of a healthy youth ministry. In fact, the size and health of a youth ministry is directly proportional to the number of adults invested in the program.

Let’s look at two scenarios:

A. A lone youth worker is in a room with 40 jr. high students or

B. A youth worker invests in 10 adults who love God and love teenagers, and equips and encourages those volunteer leaders to minister to those same 40 jr. high students.

Which is the healthier environment for students to encounter Christ? In which environment do students feel most loved and cared for? In which environment are students more likely to invite their friends? In which environment is the youth worker less likely to question is sanity and life choices?

I hope for each of those questions you immediately answered B, the environment where there is a strong team of adults investing in students! Needless to say, we value the adults (and student leaders) who invest in Colonial’s youth program and we wanted you to know that it is these volunteers who are responsible for the great youth ministry we have at Colonial.

Put simply, there are a variety of mustard tastes but just one ketchup to rule them all – Heinz. While classic yellow mustard is still popular, you can also get your hands on a variety Dijon mustards, honey mustards, and more, in a wide variety of flavors and textures, and you choose your mustard according to your mood. I think we have 4 types/flavors in our fridge at home.

Seeing that there was money made in differentiating mustard the same was tried with Ketchup. Chunky varieties were made (Why not just use salsa?), smokey flavors were created (How is that different from BBQ sauce?), and other experimental flavors were rolled out with marketing clout. They are flopped miserably.

The reason? Heinz ketchup is considered a perfect food. There are professional food tasters that are so skilled they get upwards of a million dollars a year. These tasters meticulously rate foods in a ridiculous numbers of categories in flavor, texture, smell, aftertaste, and on and on it goes. Heinz ketchup was one of the very rare foods that was found to be perfect. All the individual ingredients in Heinz ketchup blend together in such as way that it’s impossible to improve it, much less think about spinning off a Dijon variety.

But there is one problem. While Heinz ketchup is a perfect food, only 70% of people like it. It’s not that they don’t like Heinz, they don’t like ketchup, period. Ask Nicole if she likes condiments – she’s part of the 30% who are totally ketchup free.

Hang in there, we’re getting to how ketchup and mustard relate to the youth ministry at Colonial.

We live in a culture that is very individualized and accustomed to finding solutions are tailored specifically to them. You don’t want ketchup on your Whopper? Fine. Have it your way. This mindset can influence – fairly so – the structure and planning of a ministry as well. It seems reasonable to tailor the ministry to fit specific habits of individuals. Wednesday evenings not work for you? Fine. We’ll start a special ministry program for you on Thursday mornings. That doesn’t work for you? OK, how about something tailored to you and a Monday evening? Oh, doesnt doesn’t work for you? Well…it could go on and on until we have 50 different varieties of ministry mustard.

The youth ministry at Colonial seeks to be Heinz ketchup. While the different personalities and skills of our leadership teams allow us to connect with students in a variety of ways (Maybe by grabbing a burger with them, topped with both ketchup and mustard?) our primary worship and gathering times are designed strictly to the ketchup principle.

Youth on Wednesday evenings – Crash for Jr. Highers and Collision for High schoolers – is programmed to reach as broad an audience as possible. We try to blend the elements in such a way that we have a perfect blend of worship, community, teaching, play, and memory making.

In fact, that we try so hard not to be mustard is the reason that it works so well as ketchup. The programming we sometimes have to say ‘no’ to helps us live to our values. I could give you two dozen reasons, but I’ll share the top 4:

1. We value community. To be ketchup insures that we meet together in larger groups, interact with one another, and get to know others. Before we break into small groups, we’ve had a large group community experience.
2. We value worship. I was chatting with a student a couple years back and she said that Colonial had the reputation of being the Jesus(y) youth group in town. Hmmm. I’ll take that as a compliment! We can be the Jesus(y) youth group because of collective worship. Too be too fragmented breaks that down because the relationships become too self-focused.
3. We value volunteer leadership. The youth ministry at Colonial absolutely could not exist without the 25+ leaders we have engaged on a weekly basis, both on Wednesday evenings and throughout the week connecting individually with students. Being ketchup on Wednesdays allows us to “pool” our people resources in a way that brings energy and enthusiasm.
4. We value fun. Our big, ketchup youth group is a lot of fun. It brings energy and carries huge momentum week-to-week, which in turn leads to depth as we flip back to number one on this list.

We can actually support our values by not becoming too fragmented. The downside, obviously, is that ketchup isn’t for every student. While we try to cast a net as wide as possible we realize that there will be certain students that just need something we can’t offer. We’re OK with that because we know there are some other super churches in town and by maintaining our focus we can help create something great on Wednesdays for the 70% of ketchup loving teenagers out there.

Jonah 1

by Daniel Harrell

Epiphany, which commemorates the first revelation of Jesus to Gentiles (the Gentiles in this case being the magi), is the perfect time of the year to think about outreach and mission. Inasmuch Jesus was sent to the world as the embodiment of God, so the church is sent as the embodiment of Jesus to love and to serve and to grow his kingdom. Tonight at our potluck dinner we’re excited to share a new outreach initiative we’re thinking about. Outreach is the only reason that the church remains on earth. Everything else we do is just a preview of heaven. Granted, the earthbound nature of mission does make it rough. It was deadly for Jesus—and for much of the New Testament church and many Christians since. Ask any missionary, and if they’re honest, they’ll have all kinds of adversity to tell you about. The same goes for any Christian who steps it up and steps out for the sake of the gospel. Just try to do what Jesus says: love an enemy, serve the poor, speak the truth, share the gospel, forgive an abuser, give away money, fight for justice—you’ll find it can be a tough way to live.

It was hard for the Old Testament prophets too. Moses got blasted constantly by his own people. Elijah was hunted down by the government and put on a hit list. Jeremiah was exiled to Babylon. Daniel got tossed into a lions’ den. No wonder that when the word of the Lord came to Jonah he ran for his life. God told him to go at once to Nineveh and forecast its doom on account of their wickedness. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, the ancient nemesis of Israel’s northern kingdom. Sort of like Green Bay is to Minneapolis. Any good Hebrew would have delighted in their downfall, just as every good Vikings fan relished the fall of the Packers last Sunday. But Jonah said no. Admittedly, if my intent is to preach about mission and outreach, Jonah is an odd choice. Consider it a bit of unfinished water business—if you’ll recall all those sermons last fall. I did leave Jonah’s watery adventure out of the rotation. Consider it also a foretaste of Easter. Comparing himself to Jonah, Jesus said: “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.”

Given Jonah’s disobedience and cowardice, it is strange to have Jesus make the comparison. Jonah reminds me more of that cruise ship captain in the news this week. Reportedly wanting to show off his $450M ocean liner to gawkers on shore, he steered off course, hit a reef and ruptured the hull of his ship. As water gushed in and the boat listed, passengers panicked including the captain who abandoned ship for the safety of a lifeboat. Or as he explained it, he accidently tripped and fell into a lifeboat when the ship tipped to its side. A furious Coast Guard officer radioed the captain to get his butt back on board—using an Italian bad word that is now available all across the country on handbags and espresso cups. One Italian newspaper claimed the episode contrasted the “two souls of Italy” —one of them represented by a “cowardly fellow who flees his own responsibilities, both as a man and as an official” and the other by a man who works to get the coward to do his job.

Jonah is the only Old Testament prophet to flee his responsibility. The only one to refuse an assignment. The only prophet to reject a direct command from God. Like an employee who skips out early to avoid an unwelcome assignment, or a soldier who goes AWOL to avoid following an order, Jonah flees the word of the Lord. He runs in the opposite direction from Nineveh to the seaside city of Joppa where he finds what was known as a “Tarshish ship,” the ancient equivalent to a modern day ocean liner. We read that Jonah “paid his fare”, but the Hebrew actually says he “paid her fare,” meaning he bought the whole boat. He didn’t want this cruise ship making any stops along the way. Of course being a prophet and knowing the Lord as he did, it’s difficult to imagine where Jonah thought he could hide. As the Psalmist sings, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? … If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there… your hand shall hold me fast.” What for most reads as a psalm of consolation was for Jonah a psalm of calamity. He knew he was doomed.

Like any defied boss or disobeyed commander, the Lord could not countenance such insubordination on the part of his prophet. So God hurled a hurricane at Jonah’s boat, so furiously that the experienced sailors on board feared for their lives. They started hurling cargo overboard and praying to every god they could think of. Jonah, meanwhile, was somehow sleeping below deck. The picture reminds me of the young son of friends who would fall fast asleep every Fourth of July once the fireworks commenced. It was how he dealt with the stress. It also reminds me of Jesus asleep in a boat as a storm raged and threatened to sink his disciples—experienced sailors too. Like the sailors with Jonah, the disciples screamed at Jesus demanding to know why he didn’t seem to care that they drowned. What did they expect Jesus to do? The same thing the sailors and their captain expected from Jonah: “Wake up! Say a prayer! Maybe your God will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.” Of course, Jonah, like Jesus, knew exactly how to stop the storm—Jesus much more directly, of course. This may also explain why each slept so soundly.

In ancient times bad weather was always somebody’s fault, so the sailors drew straws to see who was to blame. Once Jonah drew the short one, the sailors pounced on him for corroborating evidence: “Why has this awful storm come down on us?” they demanded. “Who are you? What is your line of work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?” Jonah tells him he’s a Hebrew prophet. That he works for the God of heaven who created the sea and the land. And that he’s shirking his work. Leaving the scene. Hopping a lifeboat. Gone AWOL. Hearing this, the sailors became even more afraid. “What have you done?!” they shriek. You work for the God who made the ocean and you think you can escape God on the ocean? What kind of dumb prophet are you? They demand to know how he plans to placate his God, and Jonah tells them to throw him overboard. And what, make the sailors guilty of murder on top of harboring a fugitive? I always wonder why Jonah didn’t just dive in himself. But another way to read this is for Jonah to say, “Hand me over to the Lord.” Jonah finally surrenders.

Why couldn’t Jonah have just had them turn the boat around and take him to Nineveh? Wouldn’t that have made God happy? Like when Jesus tells that parable about two sons, each directed to go work the vineyard by their father. One son says yes, but then he doesn’t go. The other son says no, but then changes his mind and obeys. “Which of the two did the will of his father?” Jesus asked. The answer was the second son, whom Jesus commends. But apparently Jonah would rather die than change his mind and obey. The author has yet to reveal why—though if you’re curious you can skip ahead to chapter 4. Jonah says that he worships the Lord, but his actions betray a duplicity. The contrasting behavior of the godless sailors further the indictment. They pray while Jonah sleeps. They fear the Lord, Jonah rejects the Lord. The sailors are willing to do whatever God wants, as soon as they can figure it out. Jonah knows exactly what God wants, but cannot stand to be a part of it.

I was sharing with the Friday Morning Men’s Group this week how I ended up as a minister. I heard the call at a fraternity party of all places. But then again Jesus was something of a party guy. I can’t exactly say what happened. I hadn’t been drinking. I just got this sense that ministry was for me. I confirmed the notion with a couple of friends and mentors, and by the next afternoon had dropped my business major and picked up religion and Greek. My fraternity brothers were horrified. They’d thought me to be rather normal. But instead I was throwing away a budding and creative career in graphic design and marketing for sake of pot luck suppers and committee meetings? They did have a point. You don’t have to go to seminary or work in a church to do the work of the Lord. If anything, the Kingdom of God could probably do more, missionally speaking, with fewer pastors and more Christians viewing themselves as “ministers” in other vocations. As the apostle Paul exhorts us, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, working for the Lord and not for people.” When our jobs are done before God, they have their own integrity apart from anything else they might accomplish, for the labor itself brings glory to the Lord. I could do whatever career I wanted for the Lord. Had I been drinking? People do make a lot of decisions when in their 20s that we really shouldn’t be allowed to make.

Maybe my fraternity brothers were right. So I delayed going to seminary, just to be sure. I could still do plenty of ministry in the meantime. In fact, I’d been invited to lead a small group as part of a Christian fellowship conference. Unfortunately, the conference fell on the same weekend as my university graduation. But the girl I was dating was going to the conference, and delaying seminary was going to give me more time to spend with her. So I decided to have the university just mail me my diploma. My parents tried to talk me out of it; said they at least deserved a moment in the sun for putting me through school, but I’d made up my mind. Besides, in addition to becoming a pastor, God also told me that this woman could be the one. So my mom made me a cake with a little plastic graduate figurine on top and I ate a piece and that was basically it.

Up at the conference, the woman for me decided I wasn’t for her. I think she said God told her that. She was up for marrying an ad exec, but what woman in her right mind would ever opt to be a preacher’s wife? Rejected, I went back home to live with my parents who informed me that if I was going to live with them I would need to pay rent. With extra money each week if I wanted laundry. So now I needed to make some money. I tried my hand at the only thing I could find: selling dictionaries and Bible story books door-to-door.

My first day on the job I called on a mobile home and was greeted by this lowly housewife who politely agreed to hear my pitch. I was in the middle of it when her husband drove up in his pick-up, saw my car, came bursting through the door, caught me showing dictionaries to his wife and went full vent into a violent and jealous rampage. “I oughta kill you,” he shouted. He let loose such a string a expletives that I couldn’t help but suggest he might like one of my dictionaries, just to amend his vocabulary. Instead he went for his shotgun which was my cue to leave. Needless to say I didn’t sell a single book. I drove home to discover that the postman had unceremoniously delivered my college diploma into our mailbox. I pulled it out and stared at it and then it hit me: the best years of my life were now over. College was finished, my girlfriend was gone, my parents were charging me rent, my friends had moved on to lucrative careers while I had crazy husbands pointing shotguns at me, a pathetic peddler of books trying to make money for seminary in order to become a minister. Just throw me overboard and put us all out of our misery.

The sailors finally concede, but not without first praying to the Lord they’d never met and begging him not to hold this deed against them. Again, the pagan sailors display more reverence than Israel’s prophet. “Do not make us guilty of innocent blood;” they pray, “for it is you, O LORD, who has done as it pleased you.” Jonah knew this too. The sailors pitched him overboard and the storm stopped. Like with the disciples in the boat with Jesus: the storm terrified them all right, but Jesus stopping the storm scared the crap out them. Like the disciples, I imagine these sailors turning white as sheets, their eyes a-bug and their mouths agape as they say, “Oh-my-God!” Which really is the point of both stories.

And yet despite Jonah’s disobedience, God won’t let him drown. Instead, “the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” If the book ended here, you’d conclude that “to swallow” is the same as “to eat.” It wasn’t good enough for disobedient Jonah to drown. God wanted him digested too. But knowing the rest of the story, we know that what looked like Jonah’s demise was in fact his salvation. Which is why Jesus ties his own death to this story. And also why early Christians used the fish as a sign of their faith and stuck fish shaped bumper stickers on the back of their burros. Jesus called his resurrection the “sign of Jonah.” Even though Jonah rejected the Lord and disobeyed his commands, God saved him anyway. We’re left with this question: If salvation was the outcome of Jonah’s disobedience, what will things be like when he finally decides to obey?

For me it meant finally getting to seminary and into ministry where despite plenty of hardship, I’ve come out with more than my share of joy. I’m very grateful man for whom God has granted all sorts of grace as I’ve shared the lives of his people in this great mission we know as the church.

As we will see with Jonah, the grace that saves us does not absolve us of responsibility. But neither does it bully us into obedience. I like how the fifteenth century mystic, Julian of Norwich envisioned grace as courtesy rather than coercion; as invitation rather than imposition. “Grace works with mercy,” she said, “by lifting up, rewarding, endlessly surpassing all that our loving and our travail deserves, spreading abroad and making plain the high abundance and largesse of God’s royal Lordship in his marvelous courtesy. … ” she said, “He comes to us, to the lowest part of our need. For he despises nothing of what he has made. … he surrounds us so tenderly while we are yet in our sins.” And even when we, like Jonah refuse the embrace, grace still surrounds us like a mighty ocean, until finally, grace swallows us whole and we really can’t refuse it anymore.

An artist’s reception for the Colonial Exhibit has been set for Monday, January 23 from 7:00 – 9:00 pm. Please stop by and enjoy the Exhibition.

When students come to CRASH they are immediately placed on one of four teams. These teams are made up of both genders and different grades, with leaders as team captains. Teams are entirely open meaning that any new student can hop right in. These teams are part of a year-long competition, ending with one team being crowned as the year’s champion.

Last year the Danceformers won the first CRASH Championship Trophy. Teams get points when they win the gym games, wear their color and the most points when they bring new friends. Of course, they also get points for wearing their team t-shirts.

The teams this year are Denim Venom, Hip Hop Opotamus, Krazy Krabs and The Illgrims. Random and silly I know.

The Team Captains came up with the names, colors and t-shirt designs this past summer at our leadership retreat. T-shirts will be on sale in early February and are completely optional for your students. They will be $10.

I’ll end with 3 good reasons why you might want to consider buying a t-shirt.

1. They look awesome. Seriously.
2. These teams represent 1 of 3 places to belong at CRASH. You belong to the whole CRASH community when you come. You belong to your small group made up of the same grade and same gender students. And you belong to your team where you play hard and create unity.
3. When students wear these t-shirts outside the walls of Colonial, other students ask them about their awesome shirts and this provides an easy way for students to invite their friends to come experience CRASH and the opportunity to even share a little about their faith with their friends!                                              –Nicole

All students in grades 6-9 are invited to leave behind the stresses of daily life and encounter God at Covenant Pines Bible Camp. We will leave Friday the 9th, early evening, returning Sunday the 11th in the afternoon and – believe me – we will cram just about all we can into this time together.

From worshipping God through music, playing games in the snow (or whatever wonderful March weather we have in McGregor, MN), and deepening the relationships in our youth group community. The Confo class and CRASH will have separate learning times appropriate for each group, but the rest of the weekend will be spent together, growing in Christ and growing in our relationship with one another.

CRASH parents register your students BEFORE February 1st and save $25! Confirmation students will have a separate registration link sent out by email.                      –Nicole

The Numbers
Budget Year to Date: $1,273,568
Actual Year to Date: $1,157,526
Actual Year to Date Last Year: $1,182,238

Barry Naugle, Treasurer

I always ask them where their friends are plugged into church and I obviously encourage them to bring their friends with them to Colonial if they aren’t plugged in anywhere else.

I’ll also talk with students to give them an invite to events, such as a retreat or service project. Sometimes I’ll get a response like, “I’m probably not going because I don’t know anyone.”

I tell you these things because we work very hard to make youth group be a comfortable and inviting place. A place can be crazy welcoming, but there is still no substitute for an invitation and a ride from a friend. For this reason we try to instill into students that’s it’s a great thing that they invite friends to come with them to youth group. On our end, we promise to make them feel welcome.

We try to make it fun as well. In Crash we give a gift to every student when it’s there first time at youth group – a can of Pork and Beans. The kids think it’s funny, plus we remind them all that they are high in fiber. That gets a chuckle. The students are legitimately bummed if there is a week that we don’t get to give out Pork and Beans.

In Collision the students are a little older so we give them a choice. We call it “Take the Car or Take the Shot.” If they take the car they get a matchbox car to take home with them, no strings attached. If they choose the “Impossible Shot” then they get a chance to shoot a ball through a tiny hoop we have mounted in the Pond Room and if they make it, they get everything that’s in our big prize box. Every week that the Impossible Shot isn’t made we add more items to the prize box. They don’t call it the Impossible Shot for nothing and the prize box is heaping over. If somebody does make that shot one day, the Pond Room will go NUTS.

We think a healthy youth group is one where kids are coming to know Jesus and inviting their friends to do likewise, so we want to make it as fun as possible to bring friends.

I do want to share with you a unenforced policy we’ve had, which is that registration for events turns off 24 hours prior to the start of the event.

It’s not uncommon for families to register as close as 10 minutes before an event or equally common for folks to just show up without registering. Both Nicole and I are “big tent” kinda folk. The more kids, the better. We want everyone to be able to come to things, and we genuinely aren’t frustrated when kids just show up for things as we’re happy to see them.

So our policy of registering for events at least 24 hours ahead of time will in all likelihood never be enforced, because we don’t want anyone to feel like they are turned away. I can’t over-state this.

But even as we won’t enforce this policy, I would ask you to do us an act of kindness and please do register at least 24 hours prior to events, as it helps in a variety of ways:

1. It’s Friendlier. If everyone is registered ahead of time we spend less time taking checks and filling out paperwork as folks trickle into the event, and more time greeting students. Less last minute paperwork equals more time for us to be with kids.

2. We don’t have to call audibles. We plan and program specifically for the number of students registered for an event. If we have a large numbers of walk-ins it often means that something we had prepared just won’t work as well, meaning we quickly have to scramble to Plan B. I’ve done this so long that this doesn’t bother me in the least, but it can mean that students don’t get our Plan A, and we want our programming to be the best it can be.

3. It keeps costs down. Obviously, we’ve shopped for supplies well before an event has started. If we add a 10% overage to our numbers it won’t swing costs too severely, but if there is a pattern of over purchasing in order to accommodate last minute registrations and walk-ins, we’ll too frequently lose money on an event. We want to keep our costs fair and low for you. Everyone registering early helps with costs.

There are more reasons why early registration is helpful to us, but I’ll leave you with those. Again, it’s not in our nature to turn anyone away, but we do ask that you’ll register your teenager early – and often – because we love to see them.

by Daniel Harrell

Epiphany, which for church calendar devotees commemorates the Magi’s visit to Bethlehem not only stretches out Christmas (falling as it does on January 6), but historically ranks right up there in importance with Easter and Pentecost. Epiphany was celebrated not because three kings or wise men (actually we have no idea how many there were) traversed afar. Epiphany was celebrated because the Magi were not Jewish. Their meeting Jesus constituted the first revelation of Christ to Gentiles. This is of monumental importance to the Church because the church grew to be comprised almost totally of Gentiles, in fulfillment, ironically, of Old Testament prophecy. That the Magi bore extravagant gifts of worship to Christ signified their immense gratitude to God for reaching out beyond the bounds of Israel’s covenant to include even them. When it comes down to it, for all Christians our giving is ultimately an act of gratitude and worship. We see it with the Magi, we see it presumably with this sacrificial gift from a destitute widow who drops two copper coins in the Temple treasury.

Sunday, February 26 12:00 – 2:00pm
Come for a chili, salad and corn bread feast (complete with corn dogs for the kids). Daniel, Jeff, Danielle and others will be preparing their own chili recipes for you to vote on in categories like “hottest”, “most flavor”, and “best all around”. If you have a chili recipe of your own you would like to enter contact Danielle Jones. After lunch we will go ice skating, play a curling match or have s’mores and games around the fireplace. No reservations needed just come with an appetite and warm clothes if you want to be outside!

Whatever is on your heart to “do better,” remember to be realistic. There are just some seasons in life that are busier/trickier/fuller than others.

When my kids were preschoolers, I strived to have a time of prayer and Scripture reading while they were down for naps. Most of the time, I fell asleep on the couch. I’m not sure God minded. He knew I needed rest. But I imagine that the five minutes I acknowledged my need for Him before I fell asleep were valuable nonetheless.

That’s not to say we simply give into the pressures and demands of life that pull us away from leading a godly life, but we can be gentle with ourselves and full of grace for the season of life we find ourselves in. More importantly, we can invite the Holy Spirit to empower us to do the things that really matter for our families.

And do just that, no more and no less.

Ask God what it is that really matters for you to do better this year. Then, live fully into God’s invitation by His grace. “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” Phil. 2:13

by Daniel Harrell

Happy New Year. We begin again. And Merry Christmas too! Clearly with the hymns we’ve sung this morning we are still officially in Christmas. Eight maids-a-milking to be exact. According to the church calendar, Christmas runs until January 5, which I think is great since Christmas is an exponentially better holiday once you get past December 25. It’s been nice not to having to travel this year—though we did miss time with our families back east. A number of you were worried about that. You’d ask what we were doing for Christmas, and we’d reply how we were just staying put. You’d then assume that meant we had family coming out here, but we’d say nope, just us. The something like a mild panic would appear across your face. “Can you have Christmas without family?” And then, uh-oh, “does this mean we should invite the Reverend over to our house for Christmas?” I understand the panic. Having the Reverend show up at your house for Christmas dinner is not like having Santa Claus. You have to be on your best behavior for both of us but at least Santa brings presents.

Had we traveled to North Carolina where my family abides, we would have gathered at my grandmother’s house for some fine, gut-busting southern cooking. The highlight would have been my grandmother’s roast turkey and cornbread dressing soaked in a sweet lard-enriched gravy. Like drinking butter only better. You could feel your arteries harden with every morsel. It’s good eating. As it was we stayed here and as I need me some roasted something for Christmas to be Christmas, I roasted a goose that I shot out by the pond here (I’m kidding about that last part). If you’ve ever roasted a goose you know that it puts off a lot of fat—making for some serious gravy—just like my grandmother’s. We put out an all call on Facebook and around the church and delightfully ended up with two other Christmas-orphaned families at our table. They ate up that goose too—especially the ten-year-old boy who did his best impression of Tiny Tim. I’m surprised he didn’t sprout feathers given all the poultry he consumed.

Dawn and I were talking about how much we enjoyed this entire Christmas season—the gatherings, the beautiful church services, the lights, even the lack of snow. It was just like North Carolina. And yet I’m still amazed with how abruptly everything coems to a halt every December 26. “Joy to the world” and then back to work. Everybody starts fretting about year end finances and gift returns and getting to all those things you put off until “after the holidays.” There’s some momentary hope for a new year—except that you have to make resolutions and try to keep them more than a week. And of course the Iowa Caucuses are on Tuesday. So much for peace on earth. Was this what it was like that first Christmas?

Take the shepherds. Did you ever wonder what happened to them after the herald angels sang and they got back from the manger? What do you do once you’ve seen a Messiah? Luke tells us they ran to town and amazed everyone with their report, but afterwards we presume they went back to their fields to keep watch over their flocks by night again. There wouldn’t be much action on the Messiah front for another thirty years. Were they discouraged? Concerned? Worried that they had imagined the whole thing? Christmas can sometimes be that way. Which is why it’s good that there’s a verse in the Bible like Philippians 1:6—“the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”

It’s one of the best loved verses of Scripture. I remember receiving a framed, cross-stitched rendition of Philippians 1:6 many years ago. It was crafted for me by an old girlfriend as her way (I think) of reminding me that I had plenty of room for improvement. It’s a great verse for New Year’s Day. January 1^st draws out our deep longing for the future and a commitment to change, to work harder to make it happen this time or fix it so it won’t happen again. And yet having tried and failed so many times, most of us refrain from New Year’s resolutions because we know we can’t keep them. Better to just avoid the disappointment. But according to Philippians 1:6 you don’t have to try so hard anymore. God’s doing all the work. He has you covered.

Paul embedded this verse within an extended salutation wherein he thanks the Philippians for their monetary support. He describes this support as their sharing or “partnership” in the gospel, a translation of the Greek word koinonia which we typically translate as fellowship. Koinonia means to have all things in common; it’s where we get words like community and communion. Koinonia was epitomized in the book of Acts church where no one had any tangible needs because everything was communally shared. In this way fellowship is connected to stewardship, which we will emphasize next Sunday. Remember to bear your pledge cards for 2012 to church as we partner in the gospel once again together as a community. We will give because God gave to us. He brought us into community with himself as participants in the gospel of grace and if you have truly experienced grace, then you know how impossible it is to hoard it. You have to give it away. Paul prays for the Philippians that their love and grace may overflow more and more. Grace is what makes the church the church.

The koinonia of Philippians 1 is certainly economic. The life and mission of the church always requires financial support, therefore God spurs our giving until his return on “the day of Jesus Christ.” However, for Paul, the only New Testament author who uses the word koinonia, partnership or community also goes beyond resource sharing. For Paul any koinonia of material resources derived from a deeper koinonia of Spirit. In Galatians, Paul speaks of the right hand of fellowship (koinonia), which we extend to each other whenever we pass the peace. More than a handshake, the right hand of koinonia tangibly acknowledges our common bond through the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks of communion as our koinonia in the body and blood of Jesus. More than bread and wine, communion tangibly acknowledges our fellowship in Jesus’ death and resurrection: His dying and rising will be our dying and rising too. No longer fearful of any condemnation because of our sin, the communion table assures us that we will rise to feast with Jesus as sure as eating my grandmother’s turkey on Christmas Eve. God who began his good work in us will get it done.

Specifically described as God’s good work yet to be completed, Paul’s emphasis is plainly on the future. His reference is to God’s saving work, which we all know takes a lifetime. Christians might customarily speak of somebody getting saved, but in reality we’re just as much people in the process of being saved. Like Peter who sank when he tried to walk on the open sea, our troubles and doubts still overwhelm us and drag us down too.

Paul penned Philippians from a prison cell, with no guarantee of earthly release. Which is why he described God’s good work as not yet completed. But unlike our own familiarity with unfinished work, there’s no question that God will not finish what he started. God operates from the future where the end has already happened. His good work is already a good job to be fully revealed on the day Christ comes back. His good work is as good as done. The focus of Christian hope is not on the future but on God for whom the future is present; the focus is not our creaturely destiny but on the God who destines us; we no longer worry about the end, but trust in the God who draws us toward his glorious ends. This is all that really matters, Paul writes. Our hope for a certain future makes the present immensely livable.

So instead of spending the rest of your New Year’s Day trying to make resolutions you know that you’ll break, trust God instead. Practice your resolutions as if they’re already kept. Paul encourages the Philippians and us to be pure and blameless not because we could if they tried, but because in Christ we already are. This is true even when we spectacularly fail because then we get to show what genuine repentance and resurrection look like. To be Christian is not to be flawless, but honest and humble and brave and full of grace.

God is the one who began a good work among us and it is God who will bring it to completion. Christian hope is based on his work in us, not on ourselves or our own ability. Christian hope fosters no illusions of human self-improvement. As opposed to optimists who look on the bright side and deny the effects of evil and sin, Christian hope understands that any real hope cannot found itself upon human potential or wishful thinking. Christian hope sees the effects of evil and sin for the tragedies they are, but then translates them into what they really are by the power of the cross. Suffering, rather than meaningless pain or just desserts, translates into meaningful redemption and reinforced character. Death, rather than a terrifying end to be feared, becomes the gateway to life. Christian weaves life’s tragedies into the necessary pattern of resurrection, pointing toward that day, when by grace, all things will be made new.

And because God will do this, the good end is as sure as my grandmother’s turkey on Christmas Eve—even when I’m not there to enjoy it. Actually it’s even surer than that. The fact is, my grandmother stopped roasting turkeys a few Christmases ago. After 50-some Christmases, she turned 80 and decided she was tired frankly of cooking. That first year without her turkey and dressing was spent at my aunt’s house feasting on fried chicken wings and cold shrimp and pork sausage balls. I understood, but I was really disappointed. Christmas just wasn’t the same without a big bird from the oven. So when Dawn and I got back to Boston, the first order of business was a trip to the grocery store. I needed me some roasted something for Christmas to be Christmas.

Since we were still technically in Christmas when we returned, like today, there was still time. However when I went to the poultry case, all they stocked were these 20 pound monster turkeys which would have meant 10 pounds of meat per person (that’s me and Dawn, Violet thinks turkey are fowl—ba-ba-boom). But turkey was tradition and the grocery store was running a special ($7 off with my shopping card), so I figured why not? I lugged the bird to the check-out line and watched to see the discount beep on the screen above the cash register, you know the one that displays your “savings” once they scan your card. However the turkey discount never appeared. So I called the cashier’s attention to this discrepancy and showed her the tag on the turkey, fully expecting to receive the $7 discount to which I was entitled. She said, “You know what this means?” Sure, I said, it means I get $7 off my turkey anyway. “No,” she informed me, “if it’s not in the scanner it means you get it for free!” Wow! Merry Christmas! I gave her a high-five and left with a totally unexpected, unmerited free 20-pound bird just like Scrooge’s gift to the Cratchets on Christmas morning.

OK, so obviously this is an experience in search of something to illustrate, so here it is: God who began His good work among us will carry it to completion by the day of Christ Jesus as sure as turkey at Christmas however that turkey shows up. Because it is God who does it, it does get done. But because it is God who does it, it doesn’t always get done is ways you expect. It gets done through suffering and death, through tragedies and troubles, through endings that transform into beginnings, through grace you receive though you never deserve it. God always finishes what he starts and therefore we confidently hope. Our koinonia in the body and blood of Jesus points to our koinonia in Christ’s death and resurrection as well as our koinonia in a free Christmas feast that promises to last into eternity.

Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who live in it.
Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing together for joy
at the presence of the Lord.                        -Psalm 98:4-9

Christ is born!  May we rejoice in the love of God this day as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior.  God is with us.  He created us, redeemed us, and understands us- and there is no greater reminder of the boundless nature of God’s love for us than Christ.   Merry Christmas.  Today we remember that through the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we find new life once again.

Action:  Celebrate the birth of Christ!

Prayer:  Gentle, loving, God, You come to us this day in the form of a tiny, vulnerable baby.  We look on you with wonder and gratitude.  Glory to you in the highest heave, for it is in the name of you child, Jesus Christ, that we pray.  Amen.