Children of God

Happy 6th Day of Christmas!

We're busy getting those "end of the year" things done here in the CtK office. Good times!!

And like every week, it's sermon preparation time!

Here's the latest comic from Agnus Day, a fun lectionary comic I subscribe to by email. The Gospel reading this Sunday is John 1:10-18.

Enjoy!

Agnus Day appears with the permission of www.agnusday.org

Happy 5th Day of Christmas!

While I was out running a few errands yesterday, the woman ahead of me in the checkout line commented to the checker, "I'm sure glad Christmas is over." I said, "It's not over. Christmas lasts until the 5th of January. Today's just the fourth day of Christmas." Oh how she glared at me...

I hope your celebrations of Christmas continue, even if you're back to work, back on the road, or "back to reality." The incarnation of God is something to celebrate ALL the time. And probably even more necessary when all the glitz of the season is gone. (Yes, they're putting out Valentines at Target).

Just a couple of reminders for this week: We host the Gallatin Valley Interfaith Association Labyrinth Walk on Thursday night, New Year's Eve. An hour for children and families is scheduled from 7-8pm, and then for adults from 8pm-1am. Walking a labyrinth is a great tool for prayer and meditation, particularly as we embark on the journey of a new year and decade.

Also, we're back to our regular worship and Sunday School schedule on Sunday, with services at 8:30 and 11am and Sunday School at 9:45am. Invite your friends and family to join you!

Greeting from Lutheran Campus Ministries in Montana

Another Christmas greeting - from Campus Pastors Tim Spring (MSU) and John Lund (U of M).

Don't forget to invite your friends and family to join you for worship tonight at 6pm or 9pm - and tomorrow morning at 11am.

A blessed Christmas!

Christmas Greetings

Merry Christmas (almost)!
Christmas Eve worship here at CtK will happen at 6pm and 9pm. We also have a service on Christmas Day at 11am. And don't forget there's ONLY ONE SERVICE this Sunday, the 27th, also at 11am.
May God bless us with trust in the presence of Christ this Christmas!

Here's the Christmas message from our Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson.

The First Annual Strike of the "Cookie Ninjas"

We had a great time last night, baking up a storm, getting silly with icing, wrapping plates of cookies and then making stealth deliveries all over town between 11pm and nearly 12:30am. We felt a little bit like spies or ninjas, getting let into very secure buildings after dark. All those night-shift folks who work to keep our community safe and cared for really appreciated the goodies. Way to go CtK youth!

Join us for caroling

If you want to lift your voice in song and bring a little Christmas cheer to patients and staff at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital, join us for a late afternoon of caroling on Saturday, December 19th at 4 p.m.

We will rendezvous at the main entrance (by the cafeteria and chapel) and travel from floor to floor. We plan to carol for one hour.

Weekend Events

It's a big weekend here at CtK...

The kids are gathering for their Christmas Program Rehearsal. And the program is tomorrow morning at 10am! It's going to be great, you don't want to miss it! (Plus, I remember how it was always neat when I was little to see lots of "church-people" at our Sunday School program, besides our parents. If you're in the show your parents pretty much have to show up, but the rest of the grown-ups? That's different. So please come and support our children and youth with your presence!)

One of the annual favorite fellowship events is tonight, the Candlelight Buffet, beginning at 6pm. Cost is $5, to cover the cost of the meant, and after that it's a potluck. Yours truly signed up to bring a dessert - there is baking in my very near future... Even if you didn't sign up, please come! Bring a favorite dish to pass: veggies, bread, dessert, potatoes, whatever. The white elephant gift exchange is always a riot, and the evening's entertainment is always fun, too.

Tomorrow is the Third Sunday of Advent - we'll be lighting three candles on the Advent wreath and hearing more about John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. See you in worship!

Earl, this one's for you...

Last Sunday my sermon began with a bit of an introduction to the Gospel according to Luke, since we're just beginning a new liturgical year with the season of Advent and our Gospel for the year is Luke. I know I covered a little more ground than was helpful for some folks - but several people also said they were actually going to go home and READ Luke. Not too bad. It is the longest of the gospels, but it's still only 24 chapters - you can do it!! I also promised to write a blog post with what I shared about Luke's Gospel, so here you go:

The same author who wrote Luke also wrote Acts, so it's not a bad idea to read them together. They were written anonymously, but tradition holds that a Gentile convert to Christianity, a physician named Luke wrote them. Luke was a companion of the apostle Paul (see Colossians 4:14, 2 Timothy 4:11 and Philemon 24) and in parts of Acts the narration shifts from third person to first person plural - "we." These passages are Acts 16:10-17, 20:5-15, 21:1-18 and 27:1-28:16.

The Gospel according to Luke can be outlined broadly in four sections plus the wonderful ending. Chapter 1 - the middle of chapter 4 tells of predictions of births (John and Jesus), the births (John and Jesus) and has people breaking into song all over the place- kind of like a Broadway musical.

The second section, from the middle of chapter 4 through chapter 9 tells about Jesus' ministry in Galilee.

The pivotal verse in Luke is 9:51, when Jesus "set his face to go to Jerusalem." From then on there's no turning back from the cross. Many of our favorite parables and stories about those Jesus came to save - the lost, least, little, last and dead - are told in this section, from 9:51 - to the middle of chapter 19.

From Luke 19:28 to the end of chapter 23 Luke tells about Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem, his last meal, betrayal, arrest, trial and execution.

Good thing the story doesn't end there! Chapter 24 tells about the empty tomb, men in "dazzling clothes," Jesus joining disciples on the road to Emmaus and his ascension into heaven.

Seriously, the best way to "get" the story is to read it! Or find someone to read it to you!

Other things that make this Gospel unique: the geneology of Jesus lets us know that Luke understands Jesus as the savior of ALL people, not just Jews, since he traces Jesus' lineage down to Adam (unlike Matthew, who starts with Abraham and gets to Jesus). In Luke, people call Jesus "Master," a Greek title, not "Rabbi," which means "teacher" in Hebrew.

All those rulers who get listed over and over are meant to help us know WHEN things happened, since there was more than one calendar operating at the time. Some are Roman rulers, some are Jewish political leaders, some are Jewish religious leaders.

I could keep going, but have a feeling I could get boring...
I suggest:
1. Read Luke
2. Then read Acts
3. If you don't have a study Bible with good introductions to each book and good foot notes, get one. I use The New Oxford Annotated Bible and The Lutheran Study Bible from Augsburg Fortress. Grant mostly uses the Harper Collins Study Bible.
4. If you're really intrigued, consider a commentary. Pastor Grant and I might be willing to loan you one...
5. Join a Bible study - and if we don't have one that fits your schedule, let me know and we'll start one that will!
6. Check out Enter the Bible, from Luther Seminary. It's a great site to learn more about the Bible generally, and specifc passages more particularly. And if you want to hear some of what we use in sermon preparation, check out Sermon Brainwave, also from Luther Seminary.

Rooted = Blogger of the Day at Pretty Good Lutherans

I just received an email from someone I'd never heard of, who writes a blog I'd never heard of, either: Pretty Good Lutherans. It is "an independent news site of veteran religion reporter Susan Hogan."
I have no idea how she found us, but there we are on the right under "ELCA BLOGGERS." Huh. Maybe I'll check out a few of the other ELCA-types who are writing in the blogosphere...

Lutherans and Scripture

The following article was written by Pastor Mark Gravrock, the Montana Synod Coordinator for the Book of Faith Initiative. I hope it helps you understand how it is we approach the Bible and read it, individually and together. It's also available as a pdf file if you'd like to download it.

How's your reading of the Gospel of Luke going?

Lutherans and Scripture by Mark Gravrock

As Lutherans read the Bible, we read with some important basic convictions:

• We are convinced that Scripture is God’s living, active Word.
• We are convinced that Jesus is the center of God’s living, active Word.
• We are convinced that the Holy Spirit is at work, both in inspiring the Word in the first place, and in helping us to hear and interpret it in ways appropriate to our lives today.
• We are convinced that God was involved in Israel’s story and the church’s story, and continues to be involved in our story today.

Here are some aspects of how Lutherans read the Bible, based on those convictions:
( Much of what follows is based on Mark Allan Powell’s and Diane Jacobson’s chapters in Jacobson, Powell, and Olson, Opening the Book of Faith: Lutheran Insights for Bible Study (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2008). Other paragraphs are my own formulations.)

Divine and Human: God seems to love to use earthly vehicles for carrying and conveying God’s own power and grace: Jesus himself is fully human and fully God. The sacraments use ordinary water, bread, and wine as vehicles of grace. The Bible is like that, too – fully human and fully God’s word. As a collection of human writings, it bears the marks of time, place, and personality, and can be studied with the aid of any tools appropriate for literature. As God’s own word, it is faithful, reliable, and trustworthy, and calls for our reverence, our commitment, and our obedience.

The Right Word for the Right Time: God’s word is contextual. While God’s purposes and plans are eternal, God also knows which message to speak for each season. This is because God is in real relationship with us, and knows what word we need at any given time. For example, the book of Amos is almost all judgment, because that’s the message Israel needed to hear in his day. Later, however, when God’s people were captive in exile, judgment was not what they need to hear; instead, God’s word for them was "Comfort, comfort my people" (Isa 40).

Historical Reading: Because God is involved with real people in real historical moments, and always knows the right message to speak for each season, we care about history as we read. Place and time make a difference in the Bible.

Change and Movement in Scripture: Again, God’s purposes for us are eternal. But because God is working with flesh‐and‐blood people in our concrete settings, God knows how to lead us at each moment in history. For example, when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Gen 22), the command may have felt horrible, but child sacrifice was not unusual in Abraham and Sarah’s culture. Later on, God makes it clear that human sacrifice is abhorrent, and God forbids it.

Change in God’s Law: By the same token, we can observe changes in God’s law as time goes on. Some examples: In Exod 21, male and female slaves are to be treated differently, but later Deut 15 insists that they be treated alike. In Deut 23.1 castrated men are banned from the worshipping assembly, but God reverses this in Isa 56.3‐5. In Mark 7.18‐20, Jesus cancels the food laws of Lev 11. Why are these changes important? They once again signal that God is in relationship with us, knows what his people are facing, and responds accordingly. That’s good news.

Jesus the Center: All scripture is inspired by God, and profitable for God’s purposes (2 Tim 3.16). At the same time, Lutherans believe that Scripture has a center: Jesus Christ. What Christ has done changes where we stand with God. For example, while Paul insists that the law is holy and good (Rom 7.12), he also announces that in Christ we are longer under the law (Gal 3.23 – 4.7, 5.16‐26).

Christ‐Centered Reading: "What Shows Forth Christ": In the Bible, all roads lead finally to Jesus. Because Lutherans see Christ as the center of Scripture, as we read any portion of the Bible we are listening for whatever reveals Christ, leads us to Christ, puts us in mind of Christ, or shows us our need of Christ.

Law and Gospel: Lutherans hear God’s voice in two modes throughout Scripture. Both modes are important. "Law" is God’s voice which accuses us, judges us, calls us to account, and makes us realized that we need a savior. "Gospel" is God’s voice that saves us, comforts us, forgives us, and declares steadfast love to us. We listen always for both voices as we read the Bible.

Devotional Reading: There are many different devotional approaches to Bible reading. What they have in common is the expectation that the Bible is God’s living, active word, and that the Holy Spirit encounters us in the text of Scripture as we approach in faith and trust. We read the Bible – both individually and together – expecting to hear the voices of law and gospel, and expecting to meet Jesus Christ.

The Plain Meaning of the Text: After centuries of elaborate and often fanciful interpretation of the Bible, Martin Luther came to insist that the basis for our interpretation is always "the plain meaning of the text." Passages are to be understood in the sense that would have seemed obvious to their original readers (p. 37). The plain meaning will usually depend on what kind of literature a given passage is: The "plain meaning" of biblical poetry will be different from the "plain meaning" of biblical history, and the "plain meaning" of a parable will be something different yet.

Literary Reading: Because the "plain meaning" of the text depends on what sort of literature each passage is, we learn about different kinds of literature in the Bible, and pay attention to the type of literature as we read and study.

A Community of Readers: Public Interpretation: Scripture does speak to us individually as we read and study it. The Holy Spirit uses the text of Scripture to address our individual lives. One problem, however, is that we are fallible people, and what we think we’re hearing in the Bible can easily be skewed. We need each other. We need the Holy Spirit operating in the whole Body of Christ to be sure that we are hearing God’s Word accurately. The personal, individual messages we find in the Bible ought finally to be in harmony with what the whole community of faith is hearing.

Scripture Interprets Scripture: We’ve seen throughout history how people can make the Bible say whatever they want: Just pick the right verses in isolation, and you can support just about any position. But Scripture is contextual, and one of its most important contexts is itself. That means that as we read Scripture we seek to read each verse in its own context, and in context of the flow of all of Scripture. In this way the crystal‐clear passages of Scripture will help us with the verses that are more difficult to understand, and we will come to understand each part of the Bible in the flow of God’s overall purposes.

ANOTHER great Advent Link

I just came across this great web site, The Crafty Crow, which has a bunch of super neat Advent Calendar ideas. We're only 5 days into December - it's not too late! And while The Crafty Crow calls itself a "children's craft collective," there are several projects on this site that look like fun to me. And it looks like they're celebrating Advent, one day at a time.

Enjoy!

Advent Links

Here are some interesting blog posts to check out during this season of Advent:

Last year, The House for All Sinners and Saints made a beautiful icon out of store ads for Christmas shopping. Check it out in the archives of Sarcastic Lutheran:

A beautiful blog by Jan Richardson, The Advent Door. I return to this nearly every day to help keep me grounded during the days of Advent.

A blogging friend of mine from seminary linked to this post from One Hand Clapping, which is quite thought provoking.

A post on Sustainable Holidays from The Non-Consumer Advocate. This blog is one of my favorites, because it helps me remember that my primary identity is NOT as consumer (despite what the world around me might say).

A post with haunting art, from faith as a way of life, the blog of Chris Schare, Luther Seminary professor (and one time member of CtK!!)

A podcast from Common Good Radio on faithful parenting amidst the pressures of the holiday season.

Enjoy!

Bozeman Christmas Stroll '09

Tomorrow is Saturday (wahoo!) and also the day of the annual Bozeman Christmas Stroll. CtK won't have a booth this year, but we WILL have strolling carolers... If you'd like to join the crew of carolers, meet in front of the Baxter Hotel at 6pm. Sheet music/lyrics will be provided, and depending on the weather we'll sing for 30-45 minutes or so as we stroll along Main Street. It's going to be tons of fun, you don't want to miss it!
The Christmas Stroll runs from 4:30-7:30pm, and there will be lots of opportunities to buy tasty dinner treats from one of over 30 non-profit food vendors, see Santa Claus, and check out the ginger bread house contest. For more information, check out www.downtownbozeman.org
Don't forget your hats and gloves - we'll see you there!

Advent Prayer

We gathered here at CtK last night for the first of three Wednesday evening soup suppers and services of Evening Prayer (the next two are December 9th & 16th, with dinner at 6pm and worship at 7pm). We use Holden Evening Prayer, a setting of the ancient vespers service, written by Marty Haugen. It is much loved, and quite beautiful. One of my favorite lines comes from his paraphrase of Mary's song, the Magnificat: "You have cast the mighty down from your thrones, and uplifted the humble of heart, You have filled the hungry with wondrous things, and left the wealthy no part."

It always makes me stop to think how it is that it is good news, and for whom it is good news. If you are one of the wealthy ones, I think it's pretty hard to hear - NO PART? And let's be honest, we are the wealthy ones. About this time of year, each year, I log on to the Global Rich List, a great site where you type in your annual income and it tells you how you compare to the rest of the world - talk about eye opening.
Here are some current examples: if you make $20,000 a year you are in the top 11.16% richest people in the WORLD.

If you make $30,000 a year you're in the top 7.16%.
If you make $40,000 - 3.17%.

$50,000 - 0.98% - among the richest 1% in the world.

Something to think about during this season of "I want...," "Gimme," and general over consumption in our culture.

The CtK staff put the ornaments on our Giving Trees yesterday - the good news is that all of the families in Family Promise had already been "adopted," so we're getting a little more creative, trying to meet some future needs for Family Promise (things like gift cards to Target, Wal-Mart, gas cards, games for use at their Day House and here at CtK) and current needs for Love, INC's Linen Closet (blankets) and Personal Care Pantry (everything from shampoo to deodorant to dish soap and laundry detergent). There are also a few ornaments listing needs we have here at CtK - coffee, copy paper, etc..

I know it's not as fun to go buy a 3 pack of Secret deoderant or a $25 gas card as it is to buy a winter jacket or teddy bear for a 3 year old named Tommy, but ALL of those gifts are needed.

Together we really do make a huge difference in our community.

Keeping Advent - and Christmas

Pastor Mark Morgenstern, pastor of Atonement Lutheran Church in Billings, Montana, included the following letter to the congregation in their December newsletter. While I don't always manage to read even a fraction of the newsletters from other congregations that come across our desks here at CtK, I do try to skim at least some of them.
Much like Pastor Mark, I get frustrated by the commercialism of the season in our country, and by the strange defensiveness that some of our brothers and sisters in Christ display during the days before Christmas. I, for one, need to be reminded to slow down and wait, watch and prepare for Christ's coming - not just as a baby, but today, and at the end of time. People get ready! Jesus is coming!

From Pastor Mark (whose wife, Maryann has a non-congregational call):
Last week Pastor Maryann shared an e-mail that she received at work. It was a poem to the meter of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. While I don't remember much of the poem, the writer moans and groans about how the government, the politicians, the ACLU. the public schools, the department stores and all those who promote political correctness are taking Christmas away from "US." I am assuming that the "US" are the good religious Christians in America. My intial reaction was to simply write this poem off as not worthy of my attention. The more I thought about it, however, the more frustrated I became with the author's point of view. You see, I don't think anyone can take Christmas away from us.
I've written before about Christmastime that my family usually refers to me as Scrooge because I get pretty cynical when it comes to the commercialization of Christmas. I must admit my alarm two days before Halloween when I was looking at Halloween stuff in Wal-Mart and heard the speaker system in the store playing Christmas music. This year I've gotten pretty sarcastic about the fact that retailers are so worried about the economy that they are moving Black Friday (you know, the Friday after Thanksgiving Day - the biggest shopping day of the year) up a week so as to try and make more profit. Who knows, before too long maybe Black Friday and Halloween will be celebrated as one big buying and begging day on the thirty-first of October! See, I told you I'm pretty sarcastic! But seriously, nobody can take Christmas away from us. We can only give it away when we give in to all the pressure to turn Christmas into the economic savior and allow the hubbub of the separation of Church and State get to us.
For example, we may not be allowed to sing religious Christmas carols at the school Christmas pageant, but no one can keep us from singing religious carols at home in the shower or at the dinner table, in our cars as we drive around town and look at the Christmas lights, or out on a mountain trail hunting for a Christmas tree. The big "box stores" (I won't mention any names) may tell their employees to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," but no one
can keep us from replying to them with a cheerful "Merry Christmas!" We could even add a "Jesus loves you!" and we won't get arrested. Removing the creche from the lawn of the County Courthouse can't keep us from making a place for the baby Jesus in our hearts or in our homes. They (whoever they are) cannot take Christmas away from us.
Advent, the last two days of November this year, and the first 24 days of December are the time for us who strive to follow Jesus as his disciples, to get ready to celebrate his birth again. We can use these days as a time to fill our lives and our homes with the good news that God loves us so much that God came among us in Jesus so that we might know and experience God's forgiveness and love and live with the assurance of eternal life. We can use these days to read again the story of Jesus' birth in the gospels of Luke and Matthew. We can sing our carols at home around the dinner table. We can find ways to give of ourselves (as God has given God's self to us) rather than allow the culture around us to deceive us into thinking that spending more money on a gift means more love. As we seek to fill the 26 days of Advent with Jesus, we will come to Christmas moring blessed and we will have kept Christmas well!
God's blessings to you all - and Merry Christmas! Jesus loves you - that's what it's really all about.

How are you keeping the season of Advent this year? More tomorrow on ways to celebrate this season...