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Is
this a crazy makin’ time or what? Only last Thursday, most
of us gathered around a Thanksgiving Day table with friends or
family. Now you come to church, only to discover that it is
Advent, a new church year, a crazy makin’ season. On Friday
we were greeted with the official opening of the Christmas
shopping season. What season is it, anyway? We are still in
the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, yet on one hand we look
forward to the coming of the baby Jesus at Christmas and then
the church asks us to simultaneously prepare for the second
coming of Jesus at the end times. The culture, on the other
hand, calls us into a shopping frenzy of Santa’s expected
coming. What’s happening here? It is crazy makin’ time
because on Friday, the Wall Street Journal featured an
article headlined “Why Mixing Holidays, Memories and Family
So Often Turns Sour” by Sharon Begley. She claims that
culturally-induced expectations of a Norman Rockwell fantasy
don’t match the reality of our gatherings. Then, in
yesterday’s New York Times was a front page article:
“In Annual Rite, Shoppers Mob Holiday Sales or 18 Shopping
Bags and 3 Empty Wallets: One Family’s Ritual: Day Long Orgy
of Buying Xmas Gifts.” The article was complete with
pictures showing people mobbing a Wal-Mart at 6:00 a.m. These
are indeed crazy makin’ times. Are you stressed yet?
As
I grow older, Thanksgiving takes on more importance as a
holiday, as it evokes a whole series of sensory memories and
family rituals. When I was younger, it was merely a four-day
weekend out of school. More recently it has been a time to
reconnect with distant relatives— which is apparently a
national phenomena, as the day before and the Sunday after
Thanksgiving are now two of the biggest air travel days of the
year.
My
memories include celebrations in numerous states of the union
from Washington to Florida and California to Maine, Panama,
Japan and England. It is a holiday centered on table
fellowship, a central Christian understanding. One of my most
special Thanksgivings occurred last year when we traveled to
England to be with family for a Saturday celebration, since
Thursday is a working day in Europe. Before the family time we
were staying with old friends from Japan days who, on the
Thanksgiving Thursday of 2003, sent us off to Salisbury
Cathedral for an uplifting day of sightseeing. Our surprise
occurred when we returned home on the train in the evening in
time for dinner and were greeted at the door by the aroma of
turkey roasting. Our friends, unbeknownst to us, had prepared
a full traditional Thanksgiving dinner from turkey with all
the trimmings—not easy to find in England at this time of
year—to pumpkin pie. We were greatly touched, and it was at
that moment we realized how sacred the holiday was to us. Good
food, old friends and fond memories of times shared.
Then
I encountered the concept of the “emerging church” as a
method for making sense of this time when we look backward to
the future. Our newest Deacon, Carl Thomas Gladstone,
introduced the staff to the concept of the emerging church at
a staff meeting a few weeks ago. And then, lo and behold, this
past week the Christian Century’s November 30,
2004 issue had a cover headline: “What is the Emergent
Church?” Inside were two wonderful articles, “The Emergent
Matrix” by Scott Bader-Saye and “A New Kind of
Christian” by Jason Byassee. The emergent church uses
such catch phrases as “ancient-future” and
“relevant-resistant.” Advent is the season of now and not
yet, the season of preparing for Christ’s coming at
Bethlehem and at the end of time. The emerging church is
wonderfully paradoxical. Advent itself is an example of the
emergent church with its “ancient-future” focus.
One of the
features of the emerging church is about translating the
culture’s language back to the church, as much as it is
translating the church’s language to the culture. The 180
Thanksgiving proclamations interpret our Christian values back
to us. This “relevant–resistant” notion involves the
church offering something the culture does not. And in this
frenetic and crazy makin’ season, that means providing space
for stepping back to bask in the silence and rest of our
Christian rhythms. This is why Rev. Lynn Hasley inaugurated a
half hour of silent prayer time before our regular monthly
third Tuesday service of Evening Prayer and Communion.
Beginning this coming Wednesday, we will be offering a time of
Morning Prayer and Communion from 7:30-8:00 a.m. in the Runkel
Chapel for those desiring an opportunity to break the frenetic
pattern of the season. In addition, the CLC on Tuesday
mornings and evenings provides a Labyrinth experience, one of
the most ancient of Christian meditative exercises.
“Ancient-future” is alive and well at First Church.
Now back
to the future. Let’s look at the ancient proclamations of
our Presidents in order to discern our values going forward
into the future. Yes, I have read all 180 official national
proclamations, from the first one from the Continental
Congress in 1777 to President George W. Bush’s 2004
proclamation. You have heard the prophecies from scripture.
Let us turn to these proclamations interpreting our
Judeo-Christian values back to us. A string of pearls, I call
them. Interestingly, Thanksgiving celebrations predate the
pilgrims and William Bradford’s famous proclamation of 1621,
often cited as the original Thanksgiving Day celebration. In
reality, the original occupants of the continent, our Native
American forebears, traditionally held harvest thanksgiving
festivals devoted to giving thanks to the deity. Historical
records show that the Spanish held a Thanksgiving ceremony in
Texas in 1541, The French Huguenots in Florida in 1564, the
English in Maine in 1607 and the Virginians in 1620, so our
tradition predates 1621.
What
then was being proclaimed? In a word, there is remarkable
consistency among the 180 proclamations since 1777. They call
upon us to give thanks to almighty God without exception. The
Psalms are the most-widely-quoted reference in the various
proclamations—closely followed, I might add, by The Book of
Common Prayer. These proclamations mirror our faith back to
us. I see them as challenges to us as we venture forth,
remembering our past but entering the future. These
proclamations represent the highest ideals for our nation and
its citizens.
Perhaps
one of the most dominant themes is a sense of triumphalism,
with the republic serving as the new Jerusalem, a city set on
a hill. To use Isaiah’s words: “O house of Jacob (we are
the presumptive descendants according to these proclamations),
come let us walk in the light of the Lord.” For example,
Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1917: “We have been given the
opportunity to serve mankind,” a theme echoed repeatedly
throughout our history from George Washington to George W.
Bush.
So here,
in the eloquent words of our Presidents across the span of our
200-plus years, are their call to our better nature, a good
source of New Year’s resolutions during this Advent/New Year
season.
Service to the Less
Fortunate
Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, 1935:
“In traversing a period of national stress, our country has
been knit together in a closer fellowship of mutual interest
and common purpose. We can be grateful that more and more
people understand and seek the greater good for the greater
number. We can be grateful that selfish purpose of personal
gain, at our neighbor’s expense, less strongly asserts
itself.”
Grover
Cleveland, 1895:
“And let us also on the day of Thanksgiving
especially remember the poor and needy, and by deeds of
charity let us show the sincerity of our gratitude.”
George
H.W. Bush, 1991:
“Scripture describes our Creator’s special love for the
poor.”
“Similarly,
can any individual be truly rich or truly satisfied if she or
he has not discovered the rewards of service to one’s fellow
man? Since most of us first experience the love of God through
the goodness and generosity of others, what better gift could
we give our children than a positive example?”
Bill
Clinton, 1996:
“As General Dwight Eisenhower said during WWII: The winning
of freedom is not to be compared to the winning of a game.
Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions and the
spirits of men, and so it must be daily earned and refreshed
– else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will
wither and die.”
“Let us
reach out with generosity to persons in need – strangers who
are hungry and homeless, neighbors who are sick and loved ones
who are eager for our time, attention and encouragement.”
Ronald
Reagan, 1988,
recounts the history of the holiday most eloquently and
includes: “This gracious gratitude is the ‘service’ of
which Washington spoke. It is a service that opens our hearts
to one another as members
of a single family gathered around the bounteous table of
God’s creation.”
Day of
Prayer and Church Worship
Ulysses
S. Grant, 1877: “I earnestly recommend that,
withdrawing themselves from secular cares and labors, the
people of the United States do meet in their respective places
of worship.”
George
Washington’s Diary of 11/26/89:
“Being the day appointed for a Thanksgiving, I went to St.
Paul’s chapel though it was most inclement and stormy, but
few people were at church.”
John
Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961:
“I ask the head of each family to recount to his children
the story of the first New England Thanksgiving, thus to
impress upon future generations the heritage of a nation born
in toil, in danger, in purpose, and in the conviction that
right and justice and freedom can through man’s efforts
persevere and come to fruition with the blessing God.”
Call to Confession and
Repentance
Abraham
Lincoln, 1863 #1: “Subdue
the anger which has produced the civil war and lead the whole
nation through the paths of repentance.”
Abraham
Lincoln, 1863 #2:
“With humble penitence for our perverseness and
disobedience.”
Continental
Congress, 1780:
“That it may please him (God) to pardon our heinous
transgressions and incline our hearts for the future to keep
all God’s laws.”
Grover
Cleveland, 1896:
“Nor should they ever refuse to acknowledge with contrite
hearts their proneness to turn away from God’s teachings and
to follow with sinful pride after their own devices.”
Humility and Righteousness
George
Washington, 1797:
“Preserve us from the arrogance of prosperity. Render our
country more and more a safe and propitious asylum for the
unfortunate of other countries.”
Theodore
Roosevelt, 1906:
“Upon the foundation of our material well-being must be
built a superstructure of individual and national life in
accordance with the laws of highest morality, or else our
prosperity itself will in the long run turn out a curse
instead of a blessing.”
Theodore
Roosevelt, 1908:
“For the very reason that in material well-being we have
thus abounded, we owe
it to the Almighty to show equal progress in moral and
spiritual things… The things of the body are good; the
things of the intellect are better; best of all are things of
the soul; for in the nation, as in the individual, in the long
run it is character that counts.”
Ulysses
S. Grant, 1876: “We have especial occasion to
express our hearty thanks to Almighty God, that by His
providence and guidance our Government, established a century
ago, has been enabled to fulfill the purpose of its founders
in offering asylum to the people of every race, securing civil
and religious liberty to all within its borders, and meting
out to every individual alike justice and equality before the
law.”
As we give
thanks, let our proclamations and prophecies guide us from the
past into the future. This is truly an ancient-future season.
Happy New Year!!!
Note:
All proclamation quotes are from www.pilgimhall.org.
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