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Bibles

12/28/2015

By Rev. Dr. Tom Rice

At our Sunday school class a few Sundays ago a question came up: How many Bibles do you have? One person said 5. Another person answered 10—counting all of the ones they have inherited from family members. I confessed that I have about 20. Different translations, different languages. I have a Hebrew Bible, a Greek Bible, and a Bible in Spanish.

Our teacher then explained that he grew up in a church where the people in the pews didn’t study the Bible. He didn’t open a Bible at church—and he certainly didn’t open one at home. Until everything changed. One day he was asked to be a volunteer with the youth group. Suddenly he wanted to know more. Suddenly he NEEDED to know more. To teach them—and to be growing in faith himself.

I wonder how many of us have Bibles that sit around, unused. There can be lots of reasons. We’re very busy people. But that’s not the only reason. There was a time when my mom was afraid to go to a Bible study. She didn’t want people to find out how little she knew! Let’s be honest. The Bible, in many ways, is a strange book. It comes to us from a very different culture, a very different time in history.

I love the story in Acts about Philip and the Ethiopian he meets on the road. The stranger is reading the prophet Isaiah, and Philip asks him, “Do you understand what you are reading? The Ethiopian answers, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” That’s a good answer—for all of us.

I don’t know if you will make a New Year’s resolution, but I want to propose one for us. Let’s take our Bible off of the shelf. Let’s come with our questions, and frankly, with our ignorance. Let’s grow together in our understanding, letting our faith community and the Holy Spirit guide us.

We’re offering a new class called “Animate Bible.” “Animate,” of course, means “bring to life.” There are lots of options. You can come on Sundays at 9 or 11:30 am. Or you can come on Wednesdays at 7:30 pm. Starting on Sunday January 10 (or Wed. the 13th) we’ll have a 5 week series that looks at questions we all have about the Bible. It’ll be a safe place to learn. And to be honest, it’ll be fun, too. Each session begins with a video presentation by great teachers/preachers from around the country.

And hey, if you don’t have a Bible, I’d be glad to get one for you…
A HAPPY AND HEALTHY AND BLESSED NEW YEAR TO YOU!

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Rev. Julia's Christmas Letter

12/23/2015

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The One I need, the Very One

12/21/2015

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By Rev. Dr. Tom Rice

We might not think about it. We try to mask it with all of those Christmas lights. But Christmas comes at the darkest time of the year. The LONGEST nights—literally, and perhaps figuratively, too.

As pastors, we see it again and again. For many people, this season that is SUPPOSED to be full of joy and family and friends, is instead a time (as paradoxical as it sounds) filled with emptiness. Missing loved ones who are not with us. Grief we thought we had worked through suddenly resurfacing. A lonely time. A time of great financial and personal stress. How can we afford it? Will family members get along? Will everything be “perfect” for the meal? Will people like their gifts? Will we get what we want? (You can surely add to this list…) Longest nights indeed.

Yesterday I went to the Easton Mall for the first time. I was trying to finish up my Christmas shopping. They were even using empty fields in the area for extra parking. It was mobbed, and I could feel the stress—for people working there as well as for shoppers in those long, long lines. Heck, I was stressed! Was I getting the right size? How long would this line take? Could I fight through that traffic and make it to the Christmas party on time?

It struck me: The irony of all of this. We are celebrating Jesus’ birthday. Why do we make it about US?

On my birthday, do family and friends worry about whether they get what they want for my birthday?!

Would Jesus want our celebration of his birthday to be a time in which we stress out, and get depressed, and spend lots of money—money that we don’t have—getting things for people—things that they really don’t NEED?!

How would Jesus want us to celebrate his birthday? What would Jesus want this time of year to be like for us and for all of those we spend time with?

I love the story that Presbyterian preacher, author and professor Tom Long tells about a church putting on a presentation of A Christmas Carol in the fellowship hall. Near the end of the performance the church member playing Scrooge was supposed to throw open his bedroom window and shout out to an imaginary boy, “Hey, boy, boy, you there. Come up here. I have something for you to do.” Then Scrooge was to distribute gifts for the poor of London.

The actual performance didn’t go as planned, exactly. When the actor thrust his head out the window of the set and said, “Hey, boy, boy, you there,” a young boy in the congregation thought Scrooge was speaking to him. When Scrooge said, “Come up here. I have something for you to do,” the boy got out of his seat and came onstage. The actor (who was an elder in the church) spontaneously hugged him and said to the boy, “Yes, indeed, you are the one I need, the very one.” When the play was over, Scrooge and the boy received a standing ovation.

Dr. Long writes: “This is a parable of Christian worship. We are all actors in a great play, and the script of the Gospel drama repeatedly beckons to those sitting in the bleachers, standing on the periphery, existing on the margins: “Come up here. I have something for you to do.”
(Thomas G. Long, Beyond the Worship Wars, p. 46, The Alban Institute, 2001.)

I’m trying, and I hope you’ll try too. Let’s ask what’s REALLY important at Christmas. Let’s ask what Jesus would like us to do to celebrate the miracle of his birth. Let’s listen for that invitation of our Lord to follow him, as he embraces us and says, “Yes, indeed, you are the one I need, the very one.”

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The Present

12/15/2015

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By Rev. Dr. Tom Rice

About once a month I get to give a children’s message to the 40 or so 3 and 4-year-olds in our preschool. Last week they gathered in the sanctuary in the front pews with the Christmas tree looming in front of them. I told them a story about my friend’s daughter. You can picture the scene. All of the Christmas presents were opened, wrapping paper was everywhere. Family members were feeling tired and maybe even a little bit let down. Did they get everything they wanted? Suddenly they heard their daughter calling to them. She was lying down under the Christmas tree. She had found a discarded bow—a big red one—and she had placed it on her side. She lay there and smiled and said, “Look Daddy! Look Mommy! I’m a Christmas present!”

I told this story to the children of our preschool, and then we thought about it together, and to tell you the truth, I think they got it. In this season, you see, we are preparing for Christmas—preparing to receive the gift of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. And in the midst of all of the stress and craziness and distractions of it all, the main question is this: How can WE be a present? This “hap-happiest time of the year” can be the saddest and most difficult for many people. We have expectations that are sky high, and the reality can fall woefully short. When people are SUPPOSED to be surrounded by friends and family, all too many feel lonelier than ever. How can WE be a Christmas present? How can we be a gift to God and to this world that God created and redeemed? In these days of anxious and obsessive preparations, and in the “letdown” after Christmas, how can we remind ourselves and point others to the true meaning of it all, and be present to others just as our Lord took on flesh to be present to us?

As I told this story to the preschool children I, of course, acted it out. I lay down on the floor in our sanctuary, under the Christmas tree. And as I did so I remembered these words from the Apostle Paul:

“So here’s what I want you do to, God helping you:
Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-
to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as
an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing
you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture
that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention
on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.”
(Romans 12:1-2; The Message, by Eugene Peterson)

May it be so! As we prepare for Christmas, and as we live out our response to the “Good News of great joy!”

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Costly Grace

12/8/2015

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By Rev. Dr. Tom Rice

In this season of Advent—this season of preparing for our Lord’s coming—I’ve been thinking about a book I have. It’s an old paperback, worn, and yellowed. It’s entitled The Cost of Discipleship. It’s a classic, really. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the author. Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor during the Nazi era. He resisted the Nazis (and even participated in an attempt to assassinate Hitler). He was caught and arrested, and he was one of the last to die in a concentration camp before the Allies liberated it. In this book Bonhoeffer wrote about something that he himself illustrated with his life and his death: the COST of discipleship. Bonhoeffer wrote about “cheap grace” and “costly grace”:

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace
without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again,
the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a (person)
must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it
is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because
it costs (us our) life, and it is grace because it gives (us) the only true
life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies
the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son…Above all it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear
a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is
the Incarnation of God.
(Bonhoeffer, pp. 47-8, MacMillan Publishing: New York, 1963)

Did you catch that? Bonhoeffer writes, “Costly grace is the Incarnation
of God.” “Incarnation” is the theological term for what happened at Christmas. It means “taking on flesh,” or “being born.” You see, this may not at first sound like Advent and Christmas “talk,” but it certainly is!

That old book of mine has on the back cover, in big, bold letters a quote from the book:
“WHEN CHRIST CALLS (US) HE BIDS (US) COME AND DIE.”

I actually have a shiny, new copy of the book, too. Guess what? It does NOT have that quote on the back! That kind of quote might not sell books. They are shocking words. But they are also honest.

In this season of Advent—this time of preparing for our Lord’s coming—John the Baptist cries out: “Prepare God’s arrival! Make the road smooth and straight!...I’m baptizing you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”
(Luke 3:4, 16-17 The Message by Eugene Peterson, NavPress: Colorado Springs, 2002)

Yesterday I was installed as Pastor for Discipleship at Worthington Presbyterian Church. THANK YOU to everyone who participated in this celebration of God and God’s call to us! Dr. Walter Brueggemann certainly challenged us to consider the cost of discipleship. In the days ahead, let’s rejoice in and respond to God’s “costly grace.” May God, indeed, “ignite the kingdom life” in us, “changing us from the inside out.”

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