Preaching and Teaching

Western Presbyterian Church

Washington, DC

24 January 2010

Text: Luke 4:14-21

I’m starting a new book project. This will be my third book that I’ve written since I’ve been here, at Western. Before I came here, I was a solo pastor for six years. And although I felt an overwhelming love for this congregation from the moment I stepped foot on the sidewalk, I had a lot of worry about being an Associate Pastor. I never imagined that I would be an Associate, because I love the intellectual discipline of preaching so much.

So, when I took the job, I decided that I would not give up my writing schedule that I maintained as a Solo Pastor, and I began to write books.

My next book will not just be for church leaders; it’s a trade book. I’m writing it to a more general audience. I’m writing about the experience of healing from religious abuse. Moving from the conservative religious upbringing and becoming a progressive, female pastor is a huge shift. I’ve spent a lot of time, sorting out my beliefs. Trying to figure out what has been damaging to my self-esteem, my sexuality, my friendships, and attitude toward others.

It’s been painful to write. As I’ve thought back on my history, I hold my breath as I think about the wounds that religion has caused in the lives of so many people, so many of my friends who have suffered abuse from fathers who demanded submission; gays and lesbians who felt that they had to choose between divine love or human love; people who felt emotionally manipulated into a conversion experience, or rejected by their families and friends because of the shunning that was encouraged by churches; women who felt subordinate to men because of the teachings that they learned in Sunday school.

But as I write, I also cannot deny that even though religion wounds, it is often the balm that heals as well. It makes me think of the ointment that was poured over people for medicinal reasons in biblical times.

There was a practice, called anointing. Anointing is an extremely old ritual that is used in all sorts of religions—Hinduism, Judaism. In fact, it’s a practice went back farther than that. It seems that in ancient traditions, there was a sense of life flowing through the blood and fat of animals. There was something sacred about the fat. So when a hunter killed a bear, and he wanted the bear’s courage, he would take the fat of the bear and smear it on himself, welcoming the courage into himself. 

This sense that power or the qualities of a person could be passed from one person to another, is evident in the Bible. In some cases, it’s almost like passing along an inheritance. For instance, when the great prophet Elijah ended his time here on earth, he gave to his spiritual successor, Elisha, a double portion of his spirit.

Anointing is used throughout the Bible, for different purposes. In the beginning of fledgling country of Israel, the act was used to set men and women apart. Prophets were anointed, and prophets anointed the new kings. Even before the king was chosen by the people, he was chosen by God, through this ritual.

Anointing was used in more ordinary ways as well—as an act of hospitality, the smell of the sweet oil would fill the home, inviting and comforting guests. It was used for medicinal purposes, as the oil acted as a soothing balm for wounds. And men and women anointed bodies to prepare them for burial.

It is important in the life of Jesus as well. One of his first acts of Jesus’ ministry (or at least the first that’s recorded in this gospel) was the one that we read, where he stands and reads:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

As we think about this act, as we think about Jesus—especially as we remember how prophets anointed each other and anointed kings in these ancient rituals—it is interesting to note that Mary is the one who anointed Jesus, right before he died. Lavishing expensive perfume on him, and bathing his feet with her tears, Jesus turned to her, and said that the good news that Jesus preached would always be told in memory of her.

And it just might be true. After all, Jesus is called “Christ,” which isn’t his last name. The theologian Paul Tillich says that we ought to saying “Jesus the Christ,” because Christ is his title. It means “the anointed one,” and from what we know, she is the one who anointed Jesus. She gave him his title.

Jesus stood up at the beginning of his ministry and said that God had anointed him and she prepared him for the end of his life, pouring the oil over his feet, weeping tears, in this loving and tender gesture.

I know a little bit about anointing myself. We have similar ancient rituals. In other congregations that I’ve served, I have anointed babies when they were baptized. I marked their heads with oil and the sign of the cross, to note they are a part of the Body of Christ. A Christian, a little anointed one.

We do the same sort of ancient rituals when we lay hands on one another in ordination. When you think about it, it is quite amazing. The hands that surrounded you represent a chain that connects you with leaders who go back decades. The chain of arms connect you with men and women whose courage, creativity, and wisdom have kept this church vital for over a 150 years. It always gives me goose bumps when I think about it.

And I know about anointing on a personal level. This sort of thing happened when I went to my grandmother’s home in South Carolina. I had been called into my grandmother’s room, because she had stopped breathing, her heart stopped beating, and she was dying.

We took each other’s hands, made a circle, and began singing “Amazing Grace” and reading Psalm 23. I looked around at the women who were gathered. I could see them, each one of them were preachers and teachers, in some form or fashion. They had worked hard in their congregations. My grandmother had been a matriarch in her congregation. My aunt had cared for people as a nurse for years. My mother and my other aunt led a ministry with developmentally disabled people.

I’m pretty sure that all of these women, at one time or another, had told me that a woman should not be an ordained pastor. But we were gathered there, nonetheless, with our different ministries.

It was a beautiful moment. There was no oil there. But I could not help but have the sense that the strength that my grandmother embodied was flowing there. The bear-like courage with which she faced life was making its way from her, from generation to generation.

And my mother turned to me and said, “You are an anointed one.”

The scene was so powerful that when it was over, the hospice nurse took my grandmother’s vital signs, looked at us, shook his head, and said, “Y’all just got her all riled up again. What are you doing? She’s not ever gonna wanna leave this room!”

I smiled. And something happened to me in the experience. I am not always proud of the religion that I inherited. I am often ashamed that it is a tradition that often includes hatred and manipulation.

But something happened to me that day, because I was able to embrace my history, and acknowledge that even though my faith has been a source of pain, it has also been a place of healing. Like a balm, that was poured over wounds, that anointed the feet of Jesus. That gave him the title “Christ” and allows me to live as a Christian.

You are anointed ones. You have called out been the good news to the poor, with a warm nutritious meal. God has brought us here to proclaim freedom for the prisoners,  and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed. As you work tirelessly in Haiti, as you serve women in the shelter, as you sort food at the food bank, as you fight for the environment, as you go out and struggle for justice and peace—you are anointed.

Thanks be to God.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
January 17, 2010

Text: John 2:1-11

As told by John, the wedding at Cana is a very funny story. The humor resides in the mother-son dynamics between Jesus and Mary. They are classic.

As the story begins, everybody was apparently having a swell time at the reception until the wine ran out. While most figured the lack of wine meant the reception was over (operating on the millenia-old assumption: no wine, no party), Mary had a solution to the problem—her son. She went to Jesus who was deeply immersed in a conversation with some friends and said “Jesus, we’re out of wine.” Mary didn’t come right out and say “Get them some more wine.” Mother-son communication is much more subtle, most of it implicitly not explicit. But Mary’s meaning was clear: “Son, get busy and solve the wine problem.”

Jesus responded petulantly. “Mom, why are you making this our problem? This is their wedding, not ours. They are responsible for the wine, not us.” With that, Jesus went back to talking with his friends. Mary conspicuously ignored her son’s objections and told the servants (loud enough so Jesus would hear her), “Do whatever my son tells you.” Translate that: “My son will get you the wine.”

What amuses me most is what comes next. Jesus the eloquent preacher, spectacular healer, revolutionary threat to Roman authority melted, absolutely dissolved in the face of his mother’s authority. It reminds me of the thousands of times my defiance evaporated in the face of my mother’s commands. Jesus quickly did exactly what Mary wanted. No more resistance. Pure capitulation. Leaving his friends, Jesus told the servants what they needed to do to make more wine. The party resumed and Jesus returned to his friends.

Jesus was not a philosopher king. Far from it, in many ways, his ministry was intensely pragmatic. When his mother asked him to do something, he did it. When people needed loaves of bread and lots of fish, he supplied them. When people needed to be loved, healed, taught, forgiven, or warned, he did it. Jesus was a pragmatic practitioner of his faith who skillfully identified and solved problems.

In that regard, Western’s ministry historically has very much mirrored Jesus’ ministry. Unpacking our 155-year history, I have found no signs of the pretense and hubris that sometimes fills the lives of Washingtonians and our institutions. Rather, there is one example after another of a pragmatic emphasis on being faithful in humble, real and concrete terms. Pragmatic application of divinely revealed ideals has marked our life together.

When we have built buildings, we have chosen simple, pragmatic architecture such as our current arts and crafts style. When we have called pastors, we haven’t sought famous or flashy clergy but worker-bees who want and know how to get a job done. We have not gone out of our way to lure Washington’s rich and famous into our midst. Instead, we have been and remain a congregation filled with the boiler room type people who make Washington’s infrastructure work.

Jesus wasn’t impressed with his ability to make wine. Mary definitely wasn’t impressed. He didn’t even want to do it. But he made the wine so the party could continue. It is an impressive model for ministry.

I regularly use the prism of a pragmatic, goal oriented approach to life to evaluate our ministry at Western. My bottom line: Are we getting the job done? Using that prism today, I would declare the state of our congregation to be quite healthy. Why? Because we figure a way to get things done.

Because of the deteriorating economy around us, this past year we faced a major fiscal challenge. It certainly wasn’t the worst fiscal crisis in this congregation’s history. When the Great Depression hit, we almost lost our building, barely avoiding bankruptcy. My predecessor, Dr. McKenzie, often didn’t get paid for weeks on end. During the early years of my ministry at Western, making payroll was a relentless challenge. So last year was not our worst financial problem. However, it was serious.

The congregation responded with a wonderfully common sense approach. We started with a noble value: a care for those who care for us—our staff. We didn’t want to cut staff or staff salaries because of the damaging impact such actions would have on individuals who serve us well.

But our historical pragmatism also played a major role in the decision-making. We realized that if we started de-constructing our ministry to save money, it would cost us more than we saved. We would lose members who came here for the ministries that were being deconstructed.

So, combining ideals and pragmatism, we avoided something that would have been bad both for individual staff members and the congregation’s future. By so doing, we reaffirmed Paul’s primary axiom for ministry that the fate of the parts and the whole are inseparable.

That decision made, our pragmatism pushed us in the right direction for solutions to our financial problems. We didn’t try to get cute and employ gimmicks. We didn’t look for some savior of an idea. We looked inward. We asked one another if each of us could give more than we were giving to the congregation. The answer was a resounding and heartening “Yes we can.”

In like manner, we have dealt in a very pragmatic manner with challenges we face in doing mission. For several years, our efforts to build a clinic in Ethiopia had been effectively thwarted by the local government of Dukem. Many congregations would have given up or looked to another nation as a location for their work. We did not. Being good Washingtonians, we hired a top drawer lobbyist (pro bono)!

Robb Watters is a skilled D.C. lobbyist, a former member here at Western and a dear personal friend. He is now an Episcopalian despite my best efforts to achieve another end. Hearing about our plight, Robb generously offered to help us pro bono. He said we needed a meeting with the Ethiopian Ambassador. I said I would try to arrange one.

After much effort and several cancellations, we finally got our appointment. Robb and I arrived at the Embassy a bit early. We waited and waited. Finally, after about 35 minutes, Robb said, “We’re leaving.” I was beside myself. “Robb, we can’t leave. I have worked really hard to get this appointment. Plus, the Ambassador may get mad if we leave.” “We leaving,” he said with the same certainty as when Mary told Jesus to make the wine. “The Ambassador will not respect us if we just sit here for the next hour waiting,” Robb explained.

I frantically went over to the receptionist and explained that we needed to leave, gave her my card with my cell phone, and apologized profusely that we couldn’t wait any longer. “Please tell the Ambassador we are so, so sorry,” I said. As I turned to find Robb, he was already out the door. Gone.

He and I were in the car five minutes when my cell phone rang. It was the Ambassador wanting to talk. I said to Robb, “It’s the Ambassador. He wants to talk. Let’s go back.” Robb didn’t even blink, saying, “Nope. Can’t talk. Not today. Tomorrow. Lunch. My club. I will arrange it.” I told the Ambassador, he agreed and we had a great lunch the next day. Such are the ways of Washington.

Out of that shaky start came an excellent relationship with the Ambassador who is an outstanding person. The Ambassador and Robb worked every possible angle to get the local officials to let us continue with the clinic construction but to no avail. As it became clear that we had hit a dead-end, our group at Western made a critical, strategic decision. We wouldn’t build a clinic in Dukem or anywhere else. Instead, we decided to identify and expand an existing clinic.

This past October, we started delivering healthcare at a clinic in Addis where we are paying to add a part-time physician, nurse and social worker to their staff. The focus of the new staff is totally on low income women and children. The first month we treated about 50 patients; in November about 100; in December 168. The workload is growing fast. As we speak one of our members, Jim Wilson, is in Addis discerning how we can expand our ministry.

Time and again, our success in ministry is rooted in a pragmatic approach to ministry. Using the clinic as an example, our goal is to provide health care to poor women and children. There are many ways to get that done. We didn’t succeed with one model. We are succeeding with another. Getting it done is what counts.

Ministry, indeed, life is all about road blocks and failures that stand between us and the ideals we want to realize. The roadblocks and failures pop up all the time. The only issue that really matters is how we respond to them. Do we allow them to discourage us, imagining God is against us? Or do we look for another means to the same end, pragmatically assessing what is and is not possible? “Maybe there is another way” is the starting point for just about every major discovery and accomplishment in history.

Jesus definitely was pragmatic. When the disciples said he didn’t have to die, he understood the political realities and told the disciples his death was an unavoidable hard fact. In like manner, when out in the desert, Moses said what he needed to say, did what he needed to do to keep the people moving toward the Promised Land.

The ends do not justify the means. But I think too many of us get hung up on the means, wanting our means to be as pure as the ends we seek. Fact of the matter: means are human and anything human is less than perfect. So we should get used to flaws means leading to sublime end points.

Certainly the process for some type of national healthcare reform is a case in point. A lot of people across the political spectrum are upset about the process. But social change is always a messy, tight consuming, error-prone process. It rightly involves a lot of compromises as competing interests are allowed to have a say. However, we can’t let our fear of making a mistake stop us from trying to do the right thing.

I was talking to someone this week about Dr. King’s pragmatism. If you read any of the excellent biographies about him, you realize that Dr. King was goal-oriented, almost goal-obsessed. He felt no need to reach his dream of a fully integrated society by traveling a pristine, perfect path. He knew such a path didn’t exist. His path and that of the civil rights movement was filled with compromise after compromise, compromises made with some pretty tough, nasty foes.

Dr. King’s pragmatism, and that of a pragmatic president named Lyndon Baines Johnson, got landmark civil rights legislation passed. The legislation they generated wasn’t the end. It was a starting point, a framework. So it will be when this healthcare legislation passes. It is a starting point for reform, not the end of it.

Dr. King’s tenacious persistence was directly related to his goal: the society he described in his “I Have a Dream” speech. He was unrelenting in his pursuit of it. His pragmatism was related to the means to that goal. He was incredibly flexible, willing to consider many options that more rigid members of his movement considered unacceptable.

Everyone trying to help in this awful tragedy in Haiti needs to take a deep breath and become very pragmatic about what is possible and what is not. As we sit here, doctors and nurses are doing that in the earthquake zone, making very pragmatic decisions about who may live if they operate, who might benefit most from limited medicines. In the months ahead, relief organizations will have to do the same type of triage. We have to focus on what will work not what should or might be.

As we look at our personal lives, have we become fixated on the means, creating standards for them that are artificially and unnecessarily high? Are we willing to be as flexible about how we get to our personal promised lands as we are inflexible in our determination to get there?

Understanding what can and cannot happen is at the heart of successful ministry and happy living. I have friends who keep banging on the same door expecting it to open. When it doesn’t open, for the one thousandth time, they are still shocked and amazed it remains closed.

Why are they surprised? They know where they are going but haven’t figured out they need to change the way to get there. It is long past time for them to knock on some other door. For behind another door may well lie God’s future for them.

I have seen congregations do the same thing. They stick with a model of ministry and specific strategies in ministry that are proven failures. They have the right vision—to serve God and the world. But they are unwilling to change to the means needed to implement the vision, to inject pragmatic realism into their work.

This congregation has had the same mission for 155 years. We are in Foggy Bottom to serve God and our neighbors. We stand in a wonderful tradition in which people have done and continue to do whatever it takes to keep this congregation moving forward. If we remain focused on our goal, if we think pragmatically about what we need to do and how we need to do it, our ministry will be here 155 years from now.

The state of this congregation is excellent. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to a style of ministry that blends idealism with realism.

Let us pray: Gracious God, you call us into ministry. We give you thanks for models of ministry like Dr. King and the folks who have gone before us here at Western. May we learn from them so we can respond to the needs of people from Foggy Bottom to Haiti to Ethiopia and back again to D.C. All this we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
January 10, 2010

Text: Luke 1:39-45

As I was taught the bible in Sunday school in the 1950s, I thought the Bible was pretty much a book about men, for men. I learned about Abraham and David, Jesus and Paul. I am sure someone mentioned some of the women in the bible. But they were clearly placed in the background, not the foreground.

Fortunately, I went to seminary during the period when feminist biblical and theological scholarship became prominent within progressive church circles. Disciplined, brilliant female scholars probed deep into biblical texts and the history of the bible’s creation, teaching us about the crucial role of women in the bible in new and exciting ways. They documented and exposed the sexism that has infected the dominant interpretations of many important biblical texts.

As a result, it is now impossible for me to read the bible without noticing the sexism in many texts and the key role women play in the narratives. Nowhere are women more important than in the Advent and Christmas stories where men perform, well, rather functional roles. Elizabeth seems to have needed Zechariah only to become pregnant with John. Joseph wasn’t even needed for that purpose. Although Joseph must have later played a huge role in raising Jesus, in the birth narratives, Joseph’s primary function is helping Mary get to Bethlehem.

Bottom line, the men in the birth narratives are accessories. Indeed, how many Christians can name the father of John the Baptist? How many Christians can say anything meaningful about Joseph? The Wise Men carried gifts around. The shepherds were perplexed (We men have had that one down for thousands of years.). Herod is the archetype of a bad guy. John the Baptist was prone to rants and tantrums. All of which leads me to conclude that God did not need an extended casting session to find the men in the Christmas story. These were relatively easy roles to fill.

By any fair appraisal, the focal point of the Advent and Christmas stories are two humble and very young women: Elizabeth and Mary. These compelling women developed a special relationship with God, each other and the children they were carrying in their wombs. It is the trajectory of two women we follow in the Advent and Christmas seasons.

I’m not suggesting that women in the Bible are prominent only at this time of year. Women are at the heart of God’s redemptive story from the beginning. If we drop Eve from the creation story, Adam is just another lonely guy looking for love in all the wrong places. Without Sarah, Abraham is unable to fulfill God’s commands. Without Hannah’s prayers, Samuel is never born and the Kingdom of Israel never created. The list goes on. From the first chapter of Genesis through the New Testament, we see women playing crucial, irreplaceable roles in God’s redemptive drama.

The relationship between religion and misogyny is long and complex. It needs to be well understood by any religious person who wants to live his or her spiritual life with integrity. Because just as religion has been used to affirm slavery, fascism, holocausts and other despicable historical realities, so religion has been and is used by misogynists in an effort to limit the role of women in society.

Religious fundamentalists, no matter what their religion, have some common characteristics. One thing they share is a deeply rooted fear and oppression of women. Whether it be the Taliban, ultra-orthodox Jews or Christian fundamentalists, they all share a belief that women are meant to be subjugated to men. Concocting religious pretexts for their misogyny, they attempt to systematically and thoroughly deny women the right to develop their fullest, God-created potential.

Because of this reality, I am willing to give this Afghanistan military operation a bit more time just because I hope the Taliban can be kept out of power. If these thugs return to power, we know what will happen. They will slaughter moderate Muslims and enslave women. Avoiding that seems to me to be a worthy foreign policy goal, as long as there is some end game in sight.

In contrast to the twisted view of life and God we see at work in religious fundamentalism, the Christmas story is a thing of beauty. Elizabeth and Mary are fully developed children of God, willing, gifted and able participants in God’s efforts to heal the divisions in the world and our souls. Without them, there is no Bethlehem, no Baptist preparing the Way. Without them, you and I aren’t here this morning.

Every line in the stories about Mary and Elizabeth is a sermon. This morning, I would like to spend just a few moments focusing on Elizabeth’s comment about Mary. She says, “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

It is a simple yet profound statement. Mary’s ability to serve God was rooted in her willingness to trust God. God asked Mary to believe that she would give birth to the Messiah. She believed.

Now, let us again remember that Israel expected a Messiah who would lead a battle that would defeat the Romans and restore Israel to a position of primacy among the nations. How could Mary, an uneducated, powerless peasant, possibly raise and educate a child to that end?

Mary could have argued with God, claiming she wasn’t up to the task. There are lots of stories of men doing that in Scripture. She could have flat out refused to do what God asked. There are plenty of stories of people doing that as well. But she didn’t. Despite the seeming absurdity of God’s request, Mary never questioned God. Instead, she responded, “Here I am.”

This is one of the many ways in which Mary serves as a marvelous role model for you and me. God oftentimes asks us to do things that seem to be outside our capabilities. Maybe we are asked to care for a dying or aging family member, basically putting our lives on hold so they can have a better quality of life. Maybe we are asked to challenge an injustice at work, a task that will put our career at risk. Maybe we are asked to make a total switch in our lifestyle—forsaking things we have been doing since we were young. Maybe we are asked to cope with a family member who is totally dysfunctional. Maybe we are asked to serve as elders or deacons in this congregation.

Whatever challenge God places before us, we will succeed in meeting the challenge as we, like Mary, believe that what God has asked us to do is something we must and can do. We succeed when we place our trust in God’s call, not in our evaluation of our gifts.

What I am suggesting is way beyond the power of positive thinking approach. I’m not saying that we can do something simply by willing it to happen. Nor am I saying that we must envision ourselves succeeding in order to succeed. No, I am saying that when we are aligned with God, when we are doing that which God is calling us to do, we cannot be stopped. Because God cannot be stopped.

We have been feeding the homeless for 26 years here at Western because our members have believed that God wants and will help us feed the hungry. We have been growing our membership because we believe that God wants and will help us grow a progressive Christian voice in this neighborhood. We have been effective in ministry in Africa because we believe that God wants and will help this congregation to empower Africans.

What God ordains will happen. It is just a matter of who makes it happen and when. This is what Mary and Elizabeth teach us. These women trusted that God was at work in and around them. So it is with the officers we ordained and installed today. So it is with the children who inspired us with their pageant. So it must be with you and me.

Let us pray: Gracious God, you call us to ministry. Help us to follow where you lead. As we do so, may our lives become instruments with which you fashion a just and peaceful world. We pray this in your most holy name. Amen.

Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
January 3, 2010

Text: John 1:1-18

Last week, as I looked at the opening verses of John’s Gospel for the thousandth time, what struck me anew is the way John explains everything in creation as flowing directly from God. It is especially clear in the third verse where John writes: “All things came into being through (the Word), and without (the Word) not one thing came into being.”

John’s world view is not uniquely Christian. It is the dominant world view of most people throughout history. Overwhelmingly, our ancestors believed that the hand of God was at work in everything. Whether they were animists or Christians, Jews or Hindus, Muslims or Buddhists, most people in prior generations believed they could not understand their existence or the world apart from God.

When a family did well economically, it was a sign that God was pleased with them. A birthmark on a child’s face was a sign that God had a special purpose for the child. The defeat of a nation’s army was a sign of God’s displeasure.

Our generation presents a stark contrast to the God-oriented world view of our ancestors. Rarely, if ever, has a generation been so disinclined to view God as the cause of things in the world as is our generation. We have a determined predisposition to understand things apart from God. Wherever and whenever possible, we look for a cause or explanation for reality in something or someone other than God.

Over the past three hundred years or so, the Western world has slowly but surely detached itself from a theocentric world view—an understanding of reality in which God is at the center of everything that happens. This explains, in part, the problem fundamentalist Muslims have with our society and what we export to the rest of the world. Indeed, it explains why religious conservatives of many different faiths have problems with our culture.

When something surprisingly positive happens, we are inclined to say, “Wow, that was a bit of good luck.” When a person self-destructs, we are inclined to see it as just that—the actions of a self-destructive individual. When nations go to war, we see the causes as geopolitical and economic. When we find a cure for a disease, we praise the brilliance of the scientists.

Are we a happier people because of our decision to marginalize and minimize God’s influence on our lives and history? Are we wiser? Do we better understand why things are happening to and around us? I think not.

The issue is not whether or not God causes something positive to happen to us but what we do with it. As people of faith, we view a positive turn in our lives as a gift, an opportunity to serve God in new and creative ways.

People self-destruct when we abandon God and God’s plan for our lives. We make decisions based on self-interest rather than God’s interests. We follow the laws of the marketplace, not the laws handed down on Mt. Sinai.

Nations go to war when they rigidly pursue national interests rather than thinking of God’s demand for peace and justice. Worried more about the concerns of ruling an empire than God’s Rule, nations fight with one another like angry kids on a school ground—attempting to prove who is the Alpha nation.

There are many reasons why we in the West have increasingly looked to ourselves and the operations of nature to explain our lives; some of them very positive. Two, in particular, have helped to define the modern relationship with God.

First, nature and humans are key actors in the creation of history. So we have felt a need to understand better how and why we do what we do. With increased knowledge about our own behavior (individually and collectively), we gain more control over our lives. The effort to understand human actions apart from any type of divine influence has led to important advances in science, civil rights and elsewhere.

Second, we don’t want to ascribe bad things to God. To do so makes us either fear or hate God for doing or not stopping bad things from happening. When a child dies, we don’t want to ascribe that to God’s will and we shouldn’t. When a tornado devastates a city, we don’t want to ascribe that to God’s will and we shouldn’t.

However, in the process of 1) gaining a better understanding of our own power and the power of the forces of nature and 2) being rightly hesitant to ascribe every good or bad thing in life as a direct act by God, we have pushed God to the margins of history. We have unwittingly transformed God into the deus ex machina of the Deists, a God who creates the world and then steps away from it, leaving the creation on its own to do what it will.

Gratefully, every year in December, the Christmas story presents a very different picture of the world, one opposed to the idea of a universe operating on its own powers. At Christmas, we remember that God so loves the world that God intervenes in history to become human. The God of Bethlehem is the polar opposite of a distant and detached God.

John’s Gospel places the birth of Jesus within a larger cosmic and theocentric context. Says John, “the entire world is a product of God’s will.” Nothing that exists, exists apart from the will of God. Nothing that happens can be considered apart from God’s intentions for the world.

Certainly, this does not mean that God directly causes everything to happen in history. The creation, history, you and I each have our own autonomy. God has given us free will. With that freedom, we can freely create or destroy; love or hate; forgive or seek vengeance; seek peace or wage war. The choices are ours.

However, as we exercise our freedom, Jesus calls upon us to consider what God would have us do. This is the essence of a theocentric, God-centered life. It isn’t about what God does. It is about what we do as followers of God.

As disciples of Jesus, we can’t do what we want to do in every given situation. We do what God calls upon us to do. And when it isn’t clear what God would have us do, we pray for guidance and wisdom; we seek out other people of faith and talk with them to discern God’s will.

This is why the effort to understand human behavior and the inner workings of the creation are not contrary to the journey of faith. They complement one another. As we understand why we do things and how nature works, we have more knowledge. This knowledge increases the likelihood that we will make the right choices God asks us to make.

For example, there is a lot of alcoholism in my family’s history. There is some scientific evidence that alcoholism and opiate addictions are linked to the presence of a certain gene. I could use this new knowledge to explain why a number of my ancestors were alcoholics. However, to do so would be to ignore all the people who possess the gene but do not become alcoholics.

Why do some individuals avoid addiction while others do not? In many instances, individuals avoiding addiction allow God’s Word, rather than a gene, to direct their lives. They are God-centered people who refuse to allow biology to define them. So science and faith come together to give us a more comprehensive understanding of what we are fighting when we are fighting something like alcoholism and how we can win the battle.

After World War I, rather than follow the approach to enemies commanded by God, the victorious allies used an approach as ancient as humanity itself. They imposed punishing, onerous peace terms on Germany. In the years that followed, resentment over the unjust peace terms grew in Germany; anger ultimately exploited by Adolph Hitler.

Following World War II, George Marshall proposed a radically different approach to vanquished foes. His plan was consistent with God’s commandment to love our enemies. Rather than punishing Germany, Italy and Japan, Marshall convinced the allies to help their former foes rebuild their nations and economies. As a result of pursuing this God-oriented approach, we have had almost seventy years without a worldwide war.

A God-oriented approach does not seek to explain every action in history and nature as being directly caused by God. On the contrary, a God-oriented approach recognizes human free will and the constraints it places of God. However, a theocentric approach attempts to understand and see everything as God understands and sees things. Utilizing God’s perspective, it seeks to do what God would do if God was in our position.

It is simply blasphemous to suggest that God causes the death of a child. However, once a child is dead, the living have options. We can become bitter, immersed and overwhelmed by our grief. Or we can do what God asks us to do: “Choose life” and live our days to the absolute fullest.

It is heresy to suggest that God has ordained the United States to be the dominant power in the world. But it is imperative that we attempt to live our national life in ways that are consistent with the Way God has told us to walk.

As we begin not only a new year but a new decade, may each of us become more God-oriented in the way we lead our lives. Let us take better care of our bodies, the environment, those we love, and, yes, those we don’t love. As a nation, let our foreign policy look first to diplomats not weapons; concern for the poor, not special tax breaks for those with lobbyists; relentless efforts to protect the environment, not mindless overuse of natural resources. And of all the New Year’s resolutions we can make, none will be more important than this: We resolve to make our lives God-centered in every way, on every day.

Let us pray: Gracious God, you call us into relationship with you. We pray that we will heed your call. As we do so, may we grow in wisdom and truth. Amen.