Stressless Christmas

This evening my wonderful wife and I will attend a Christmas Eve Lord's Supper service, one which I will not be leading. While I always enjoyed this service, and while the short, quiet, reverent time involved no preaching but rather almost all music and the service of the Lord's Supper, it involved a certain amount of stress.

'Sure,' the musicians would say, 'stress for us, not you.'

Maybe.

Still, I would spend the day thinking about the service, arriving early to make sure everything was in place.

Not tonight. We show up, together. We worship. We remember the Lord's sacrifice for us. We go home.

Stressless.

Tomorrow, we go to church. We worship. We go home.

Stressless.

I don't recall resenting leading services but I kinda like the concept of stresslessness this year.

Have a nice Christmas.

Friday commentary on the human condition

...it's all around us.

Stealing a page from the National Hockey League, where the old cliche ('we went to a fight and a hockey game broke out') has been retired, two college basketball teams had an unholy brawl recently. Scholar athletes cum thugs spoke of being 'disrespected' and bragged about being 'gangstas,' the former a killing offense in some circles and the latter a virtue. Many thanks to the coach of one team who noted that his university was the place where the polio vaccine was created and that basketball is (gasp!) just a game. Good words, coach. Now control your thugs.

Upwards of ninety percent of churches will have some worship this Christmas, a Sunday. The newsworthy item is, of course, the remaining ten percent. "We're too busy" sayeth the cutting edge ten percenters. Sure.

Rick Perry is desperately trying to get a decent following and has pulled out all the stops to tout himself as the best Christian. Sure, Rick, have at it. But it would be helpful if you could demonstrate competence for the job that you are seeking. So far, you haven't.

This is my first Christmas season as a non-pastor after three decades as a pastor. I'm missing some of the serious eating that was part of pastoral duties during this time.

Do Southern Baptists really prefer another four years of a Christian president, Barack Obama, to four years of a Mormon president, Mitt Romney? I'll bet you ten thousand dollars that when it comes to voting, my colleagues will vote for the Mormon.

I don't care what people say or how many people have ebook readers, I like the heft, the rustle of pages, and the look on a shelf of REAL books.

Three Sundays consecutively I have visited other churches. I have yet to hear the pastor of a church preach. Some would call me lucky...

Disrespect Christmas? Off with their heads!

Publicity stunt?

Pastor Robert Jeffress has the grinchalert website in order to chastise those who dare offend his view of how Christmas ought to be handled. As the Dallas Morning News puts it:

The website points out those who don’t acknowledge the religious meaning of Christmas. Chief offenders are companies and groups that say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

You gotta be kidding me. There’s crime, poverty, drug abuse, murder and mayhem all over Dallas and the most prominent pastor is apoplectic about some retailer who says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”?

With the largest building program in the history of the SBC in his pocket and paid (or pledged) for does Jeffress really need to be this demagogic about Christmas?

Is Christ honored if Christians form a holy crusade to punish all who don’t handle Christmas like they think it should be handled?

Let’s see, here’s a ma and pa business that puts up a “Happy Holidays” banner in their store or restaurant rather than a "Merry Christmas" one. "Drive the clowns out of business!" manicured, well-coiffed followers of Christ rage.

Is the cause of Christ advanced by punishing them for this offense? I think not.

While in Kenya some years ago, I was struck by the ubiquitous portrait of the country’s strongman president, Daniel Arap-Moi. Almost everywhere I went - homes, businesses, offices, public places - I found his stern visage staring down at me. Seems Kenyans knew the value of respecting the president, or, more accurately, knew the consequence of not respecting him.

And is anyone not aware that there are laws in Islamic countries that punish (death penalty in some places) those who disrespect the prophet Mohammed. “Backward, evil miscreants” we might say about that.

So, why in freedom-loving, heavily Christian America do we want to stir up the masses to punish fellow citizens – restauranteurs, private businesses, small town politicians - for disrespecting Christmas? And what’s the difference, aside from the fact that the chief demagogue wears an expensive suit instead of a head covering?

One might ask, are we more interested in lost people respecting Christmas or coming to Christ?

[Jeffress has walked back the concept somewhat, disassociating himself from boycotts, for example. Still, people are invited to serve as the Christmas police and list offenders. Bah humbug.]