The Christian liturgical year ended appropriately with Matthew 25. In this passage known as the “Judgment of the Nations” Jesus declares the criteria for separating the sheep from the goats. Curiously (or not), they have nothing to do with whom one marries, the music one listens to, the company one keeps, or the dogma one subscribes to. Instead, they have everything to do with how we (collectively) treat the homeless, the hungry, the imprisoned, the sick, the thirsty, and the stranger.

For Christians these words are timely as the Advent and Christmas seasons begin November 27. These are challenging times for the Christian community. I would submit that the words of Matthew 25 gain relevance when the church (collectively) moves to distinguish itself from the consumer orgy that commences the day after Thanksgiving, culturally known as “Black Friday.” This doesn’t mean gift giving must cease.

There is great joy in the act of selecting, giving, and receiving of gifts. Even so, it impossible to deny that the hijacking of Christmas by the consumer mentality has cheapened the gift in the manger. We have purchased unwanted gifts, re-gifted, swapped gifts cards, and, in many cases, increased our debt in the name of what? It certainly isn’t in the name of the Gospel, Christmas, or Christianity. We are called to be something different.

Thankfully, hope has emerged in recent history through alternative gift giving. Fair trade gifts can be purchased through organizations like Ten Thousand Villages or local, fair trade, gift shops like From the Ends of the Earth in Dallas, Texas. I have found the folks at Advent Conspiracy to be particularly inspirational. Committed to building clean water wells, Advent Conspiracy has challenged Christians to view Advent and Christmas as a time to embrace their call to be justice oriented people (their video posted below).

The “holiday season” as it is celebrated in our culture through gift buying, parties and beautiful decor throughout cities everywhere is a wonderful time to celebrate the relationships in our lives. And there’s nothing that says a Christian shouldn’t participate. Yes, engage in the joy of gift exchange. Just don’t buy so many! The Advent/Christmas cycle reminds us that the gift in the manager calls us to a different kind of life. A life that is simpler. A life that celebrates generosity over consumption. A life that engages in acts of justice, love, and compassion.

So, find a local church offering an “Alternative Gift Market.” Host a “Wine to Water” party and help fund a clean water well. Buy a beehive from Heifer International to increase the pollination of the crops in an impoverished village.

Whatever you choose make it a Christmas that embraces the call of the Christ-child to engage this world justly, compassionately and mercifully.

Have a joyful and meaningful season!

adventus absurdus

in the bleak midwinter

… millions are unemployed, uninsured, and under pressure.

widening gap between the haves and the have nots widening and gappening like mick jagger about to eat all of the billions of burgers mcdonald’s serves from the deforested brazillian rainforests turned into grazing land to feed our addictions to cheap bovine carcasses infused with hormones, antibiotics, and monsanto’s irreversibly genetically modified pastures.

“corporate person” funded presidential candidate cacophany of outrageous claims to undermine and dissolve whatever might be left of our supposedly sacrosanct social safety fish net stockings with holes in them big enough to let the dying great barrier reef, the hole in the ozone layer, and the too late, past the tipping point, global warming gasses passed by the now 7 billion of us – we can’t seem to stop f***ing! – f***ers flow through.

we tune out with our ipods and text while we drive, droning phoning on about where we are now and how slow the traffic is… as if any one really cares.

we medicate ourselves with dances with the stars, and pretending to care about the change in justin bieber’s hair style, demi’s divorce with ashton, tantric Tebowing, and the life and times of the kardashians who somehow beamed onto our planet from a wayward script of star trek.

yet, lo!

lo how a rose!

lo how a rose e’r blooming on fox news!

awakened ones are on the rise

literal signs of hope appear

large white sheets of paper and flattened cardboard spell out what we’ve all been thinking but were too inhibited to say.

a new day is coming!

the ways of today are relics of the past!

a new heaven and a new earth are on the their way!

sure, some who of those scared but doing it anyways souls who hold those signs are shot point blank with pepper spray and rubber (coated steel) bullets.

but as with the sh*t that happens, so does grace.

God is in the house!

God is in the those who are reclaiming their gifts of prophecy and are speaking truth to power.

God is in that slip of paper that a protester slipped to Obama.

God is in that guy with the funny hat who handed that fox reporter his a$$ with a barrage of undeniable truth, and in how even though they didn’t air that clip, if it weren’t for fox being there to interview that guy, those truths wouldn’t’ve hit the net and gone viral.

God is in that iraq war vet, and that methodist pastor, and that 84 year old woman, and those kids in Berkeley who nonviolenly took it in the face … because they can’t take it anymore.

God is in those who did the spraying, the shooting, and the clubbing … who went home that night feeling remorse and realizing that they are only a paycheck or an injury away of being out on the streets with those protesters.

God is putting the protest back in protestant and universal back in catholic – reminding us that we are in fact all one – and we’re called to advent activism.

God is in the delightul co-mingling of christians, jews, muslims, buddhists, pagans, socialists, and anarchists. God is in those who are persecuted for his name’s sake accused of associating with sinners and tax collectors by those who forget that it is exactly those persons who jesus hung out with!

God is in the christians in egypt who are protecting muslim protesters at prayer and in the muslims who are protecting coptic churches, God is in the atheists and agnostics who speak well of The Christian Left, God is in the brave gay and lesbian celebrities, politicians, and athletes who are telling bullied queer young people that “it gets better,” and God is in the ironic common ground between the occupiers and the tea-partiers.

inexplicably, subversively, and completely under our nose,

God is here and on the move.

as in clandestine ways of old, where God raised hebrew leaders in pharaoh’s midst, and where God came to dwell with us as “a bastard in a barn,”

the still small voice still speakth.

Roger is an ordained United Methodist pastor and the author of the new book – Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity.  He is also an active member of The Christian Left’s Facebook page.

Photo credit: Flickr, cbeana

Many North Americans are struggling to find a spirit of thankfulness this year.  Many of us are worried about finances, unemployment and underemployment, unsuccessful job searches, shrinking bank accounts and retirement plans, indebtedness, and the prospect of needing to work until our early 70’s, given the current state of our pensions.  Some curmudgeons might even protest, “What have we got to be thankful for this year, with everything still uncertain and no end in sight?”  I share their concerns because I am facing many of the same realities.  Last year, on the week after Thanksgiving, seminary financial exigencies forced me to imagine and then embark on a new vocational future that has been filled with equal doses of excitement, innovation, creativity, and uncertainty.

A few days ago, my best friend who has been living under the shadow of what these days is described as “incurable” cancer (the alternative term to “terminal”) for the past three years reflected on our current life situations: “I’m sure that God still has plans for us.”  She has been through hell and back the past three years; so her testimony is grounded in the concrete realities many of us face each day.

Gratitude is seldom without its challenges.  Our pilgrim parents gave thanks despite the fact that their future was uncertain in this new land.  They had faced hunger, cold, death, and bereavement, and still they gave thanks for having made it through the first year and for the future that lay ahead for them.  They believed that God was with them, and that nothing in life and death could separate them from God’s providential care.  German mystic Meister Eckhardt asserted that if the only prayer you could make is “thank you,” that will suffice.

My favorite Thanksgiving hymn is “Now Thank We All Our God,” written by Martin Rinkart (1586-1649), a Protestant pastor in Eilenburg, Saxony, during the Thirty Years War.  Times were harsh as Protestants and Catholics killed one another over issues of faith, politics, and control.  Eilenburg was a refuge for religious refugees, many of whom brought with them pestilence and plague that ravaged the town.  During this difficult time, the lone surviving pastor, Rinkart, who presided over nearly 4500 funerals, including his own wife’s, was inspired to the write the hymn by reading the words of Sirach 50:22-24:

Perhaps he was also inspired by the words of I Thessalonians 5:18: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

This is no Pollyanna “praise the Lord, anyway” prayer of thanksgiving.  Nor is a denial of life’s challenges.  It is an acknowledgement that God’s providence gently moves through our lives, despite our current circumstances.  Thanksgiving is the virtue of interconnectedness, reminding us that none of us stands alone.  Rich and poor alike, job creators and job applicants, depend on countless forces for their well-being and good fortune.  When we are grateful, we discover that we are never alone and that possibilities and the energy to embody them are constantly flowing through our lives.  Gratitude reminds us that even our scarcity, we can experience love, beauty, wonder, and creativity.

During the Great Depression of the twentieth century, many economically-depressed people made the following affirmation: “We weren’t poor; we just didn’t have any money.”  They recognized their blessings despite their economic insecurity.  In that spirit, they gave generously, out of their gratitude, living abundantly despite the scarcity of their circumstances.   Many United States citizens resisted the impulse to circle the wagons and care only for their own families; they reached out personally and created on a national basis programs like Social Security and the WPA.  They realized that gratitude for our nation’s gifts required them to institute national policies that provided resources for the “least of these” in their communities.  We need that same spirit of personal and institutional generosity today, if we are to flourish as a nation in our own time of economic uncertainty.

Today, many congregations and people are living by scarcity.  Like Peter, they are ready to give up after a night of unsuccessful fishing.  But, their scarcity is transformed to abundance when they trust God and launch out into deeper waters.  A catch beyond their imagination awaits those who commit themselves to living by abundance in a world of scarcity.  A boy brings five loaves and two fishes, hardly enough to feed a growing child.  But, his generosity inspires the generosity of others, and creates a field of force in which a small meal feeds a multitude.  Miracles, or acts of power, emerge when we trust God’s abundance and share our resources in time, talent, and treasure, however limited, with others.

There is a deeper realism that inspires gratitude and generosity.  Yes, we have only five loaves and two fish.  That’s a concrete reality.   Recognizing our current bottom line is essential to economic well-being.   But, the deeper realism sees the possibilities hidden in the limits of life, and opens the door to unexpected transformational energies.  It lives by generosity and prudent risk-taking rather than fearful self-interest and hoarding.

So, this Thanksgiving, let us trust a gentle and non-coercive providence.  Let us count our  blessings, affirm God’s faithfulness, and reach out to others.  Let Rinkart’s hymn be our prayer of abundance in a time of scarcity:

Now thank we all our God,
with heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done,
in whom the world rejoices,
who from our mothers’ arms
has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love,
and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God
through all our life be near us,
with ever-joyful hearts
and blessed peace to cheer us,
and keep us full of grace,
and guide us when perplexed,
and free us from all ills
in this world and the next.

All praise and thanks to God
our Father and our Mother,
to Christ and to the One
who binds us to each other,
the one eternal God,
whom earth and heaven adore,
for thus it was, is now,
and shall be evermore.

Bruce Epperly is a theologian, writer, and spiritual guide.  He is the author of twenty-one books, includingHoly Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living, Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed, Philippians: An Interactive Adult Study,and The Center is Everywhere: Celtic Spirituality for the Postmodern Age.  He may be reached for lectures, retreats, and seminars at drbruceepperly@aol.com.