My Nativity Project (#2 - Joseph)

My Nativity Project: 
A Journey Through the Manger Scene 
in Sermon and Song 
(#2 - Joseph)

Maybe it is because I'm a man, or maybe it's because I'm usually drawn to the fringe characters of any Biblical story, but I have often pondered Joseph at Christmas time. Quite often he gets brushed to the side in our telling of the Christmas story becoming nothing more than Mary's husband and the guy leading the donkey.  However, Joseph has got some real depth and gives us a lot to think about.

First off Joseph has some decisions to make.  He must to decide whether or not to follow through on his engagement to Mary.  In order to do that Joseph has to choose to believe that Mary has not been unfaithful to him and is carrying God's baby which was created in her womb, somehow, but the Holy Spirit.  This decision - to remain on course with marrying Mary - also comes with a choice to be an outcast.  Joseph will be looked down upon by everyone for his union with the unclean, and seemingly untruthful, Mary.  It's no wonder the Bible tells us that he thought about dismissing her quietly.  It's my guess is the mention of this consideration - "he had in mind to divorce her quietly" (Matt. 1:19b) - is a bit of an understatement.

The second decision Joseph needs to make is to leave what little support he may have had left and travel to safety.  Following the visit of the Magi and just moments before Herod's murderous rampage against Bethlehem area toddlers Joseph scurries away with Jesus and Mary to Egypt.  Joseph's story seems ripped right from the headlines.  A man fleeing a tyrant to another country as a refugee seeking asylum is the experience of many in our world today.

Both of those decisions needed a visit in a from the Angel of the Lord in a dream to take root in Joseph.  

I've always wondered what it was like to be Joseph.  Did he ever doubt the story he was told about how Mary got pregnant after he had the dream?  How did he feel having to leave home, and everything he knew, to protect his family?  What was it like knowing you were the stepfather of the Messiah?  I once preached a sermon titled, "Out on a Limb with Joseph."  That sermon is long gone from my notes, papers and memory, but the feeling of Joseph being out on a limb as we read Matthew 2 persists.  While there are plenty of risks being taken in the Christmas story...Joseph is certainly a man who is going out on a limb - risking it all multiple times.

For the past decade the rock band The Killers has released a Christmas tune each holiday season.  The third year of the run, 2008, they released with the help of Elton John and Neil Tennant, "Joseph, Better You Than Me."  This excellent, and non-traditional, Christmas tune serves as a wonderful prompt for reflecting on Joseph as we place him in the Manger Scene.  

Better you than me indeed.  

Joel K

You can read the lyrics while you listen here.

My Nativity Project (#1 - Introduction)

My Nativity Project: 
A Journey Through the Manger Scene 
in Sermon and Song 
(#1 - Introduction)

When my wife, Stacey, and I got married one of the things we received as a wedding gift was a nativity scene.  It was a collection of plastic people and animals that made up a representation of the birth of Jesus.  Each year we set up the scene someplace in our home.  We often set up two scenes since my understanding of the Christmas story (which is in line with the biblical/historical accounts) does not allow for the wisemen to be present with the shepherds at the manger.  I even made a stop action movie one holiday season depicting our wisemen on a journey across our house to the manger set to the soundtrack of Fatboy Slim's "Praise You."

Long gone is that nativity - replaced by a trio of nativity scenes from around the world.  Some of the scenes have wisemen and shepherds, and one African scene is just Mary, Joseph, and the Baby.  Gone too is the plastic.  Each of the new wave of manger scenes in our home is made from a natural substance - wood, banana leaves, and coconut shell.

This Christmas season I will again drop my persnickety persistence about the placement of the wisemen, this time to place that energy towards a series of reflections on the principle players in the nativity scene.  The form of this reflection take two parts.  The first part is a series of sermons I will be preparing and delivering at my home church (Crosspoint Community Church) December 6, 13, & 20.  Those messages will reflect on Zechariah (John the Baptist's dad), Mary, and The Shepherds (with the Angels).  The audio of those sermons will be posted to the blog the week after the message is delivered.  The remaining reflections will be short written reflections on other characters - Bethlehem, Joseph, the Wisemen, and Jesus himself - all tied to some of my favorite Christmas music from Low, The Killers and Vigilantes of Love.

I invite you to set up a nativity scene in your house (ours will go up today) and join me as I journey through that nativity over the next four weeks of Advent.

Guest Blog: New Book Release: An Interview with Dr. Ron Ruthruff

My friend and mentor Dr. Ron Ruthruff has a new book out this week.  

You can lean more about it in this interview...and then go buy the book of course. :)

http://theseattleschool.edu/ron-ruthruff-new-book/

NEW SERMON: Free to Love

I had the privilege to preach at Crosspoint Community Church this past Sunday on Galatians 5:1-15.  That sermon, "Free to Love" can be listed to here.

Thoughts On Being In Guatemala City The Week Of All Saints Day

Sunday, November 1, 2015, I landed in Guatemala City for the Synergy Conference, a gathering of people from around the world seeking to love their cities.  It seemed fitting to be arriving at a gathering of ministry practitioners - some working in very hard places - on All Saints Day.

All Saints Day is the celebration of all the saints, known and unknown, who have gone before us.  In protestant churches it is not much remembered other than the very loosely connected Halloween night on the Eve of All Hallows Day (another name for All Saints / All Souls day).  It is further obscured by the remembrance of Reformation Day coinciding with the celebration.

As the wheels hit the ground that Sunday morning my mind was bleary, foggy from a red-eye flight, I was excited to be joining with my friends, teachers and colleagues, from around the world.  Little did I know that the significance of our gathering being on week of All Saints Day would only grow as the days went on.

After a day of the conference being contained within the walls of the hotel we ventured out into the city.  The first stop was the Guatemala National Cemetery where were learned on a tour a bit of the history of the country and the wounds that exist from that history.  A key part of the history is the 36 year civil war (1960-1996) that ravished the country.  During that conflict an estimated 300,000 people "disappeared" as part of a terror campaign.

The next stop on the tour that afternoon was FAFG (The Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation) a non-governmental organization that recovers the remains of the disappeared (many found in mass graves) and seeks to identify them and return them to their families.  To date they have recovered around 1% of these non-combatant victims of the war.  As we stood in a laboratory that contained around two dozen skeletons, hearing about the work of the FAFG, it struck me that these executed people are a portion of the saints that have gone before us.

In the cemetery we also heard the very personal story of a young man who was one of the workers in the dump just over the bluff.  During the rainy season he was caught in an avalanche of garbage and swept 12 miles away by the storm water that is drained into the landfill.  That young man, who labored in the shadows of the graves of the most famous and wealthy of the country, is now in a simple grave in that same cemetery among the common people.  There he is unknown to most of the world just has he had been largely unseen in life.  But he is not forgotten by his friends (those leading our tour) or by his God.  Another Saint that has gone before us.  (for more thoughts about this saint see my friend Annette's Blog here).

The next day we were back out in the streets of Guatemala City.  This time I was involved in meeting pastors from around the city and hearing about the churches role in transforming the city.  One of the stops was to hear about the peace and justice work of the Catholic orders in the city.  During that time we were told the story of Assistant Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi Conedera.  He was the Bishop that delivered to the government the report from the Catholic Church exposing their findings about the "disappearances" during the civil war.  Two days later, April 24, 1998, he was found beaten beyond recognition in front of his home.  Another Saint that has gone before us.

That second day of the tours began in the conference room of a western style mega-church listening to Shorty who is a pastor and church planter in some of the hardest areas of Guatemala City.  Shorty explained that he often calls his daughters before who goes into one of the neighborhoods, in case he is killed.  He challenged us by asking, "Are you willing to die where God has asked you to go?"  Again, my thoughts returned to those Saints who have gone before and found myself thinking about my commitment to the place(s) God has called me.

Will God, and my bothers and sisters in Christ,  see me as a saint that went before?

Peace and All Good from Guatemala.

Joel K

NEW SERMON...

I had the privilege to preach on Galatians 3:1-14 this past week at Crosspoint Community Church.  You can listen to the sermon, “Mirror or Mosaic or Do you have to be like me to be saved/a Christian?”, here.

Joel K

Crying...again? Seriously?!?!

This past Monday morning I drug myself to the gym.  I was starting the week tired, but that didn't keep me from the gym.  I climbed onto the stationary bike to get my heart rate up before some circuit training and opened the book I have been reading for the past week or so.  I cracked the binding of Accidental Saints: Finding God In All The Wrong People by Nadia Bolz-Weber looking for some inspiration to jolt me into some energy.  That would not be the case.

As I began reading chapter 5, You Are Not "The Blessing,"  the story of the author pastoring a Bishop she had just met through his wife dying of cancer, a wave of emotion began to seep up from my very foundation.  Because of my experience of having my wife battle cancer (she survived) cancer stories always swiftly dredge up lots of feelings and empathy.  As I read I was resonating deeply with Bishop Bruce's story.  However, it was a scene later in the chapter that caused me to breakdown into tears - in public - again(!).

Following the death Bishop Bruce's wife Bolz-Weber found herself at the visitation and funeral.  She relays this moment in the book:

"...Bruce approached me at the funeral reception and asked if I would stay until everyone had left, I said yes.  As we stood in an empty church fellowship hall next to the drained coffee pots and empty cheese trays, I asked, "So, Bruce, who pastors bishops?"  "No, one," he said in almost a whisper, not out of secrecy or shame but out of the weighty truth of it."

Reading Bruce's answer, that no one pastors bishops, is the exact spot where I burst into tears - once more relating on a very deep level.

Pastors find themselves in a unique position as the spiritual caregivers of others.  Our spiritual leaders are often the givers of care, but far too often not recipients themselves.  Bolz-Weber muses on why this might be the case:

"Maybe we simply don't want our leaders to have needs.  Maybe it's not only the leaders who think they should be perfect; maybe it's also the followers who expect them to have it all together.  Maybe we want the people who care for us and lead us to not be like us, to not struggle like us, because if we realize they, too, are hurting and needy, then maybe the spell - the illusion that we're okay, and in good hands - breaks.  Like how distressed I was when I saw Miss Kramer, my third grade teacher, walking out of the teachers' bathroom.  Wait.  You mean teachers also go to the bathroom?  You mean, like me? I never saw her the same again."

October is Pastors Appreciation Month.  I wonder if this isn't a good time for leaders and followers alike to think about the nature of being a leader.  It's not an easy job being a Pastor.  I know first hand the pressure of feeling like I need to have all of my stuff together.  I also know that shock I once felt when my leaders shared their shortcomings.  I was once floored by a Professor's admission that he struggled his entire life with wanting to do daily Bible reading and prayer.

Can we not only appreciate our Pastor's this month, but also think through how we can best be the community of Christ together?

Do we expect our leaders to be the perfect people Bolz-Weber describes?  For the reason she offers?

Do leaders buy into that culture of leadership perfection as well?

And maybe the most important question, who pastors the pastors?

Joel K