FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT

AS EVER, WENT TO CHURCH last Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Advent. Being in Colorado, this was the United Methodist Church just down the hill from my daughter's home in Holland Hills. Mainly, this was a Christmas Pageant, which was disappointing for me as I love to hear the readings from the Jewish part of the Bible (what Christians call the 'Old Testament'), also from the Epistles, and finally the Gospels.

Call me a traditionalist when I comes to 'order of worship'. Apart from the merest scrap of so of the scripture, there was no sermon or even a short homily. As you will all know from my last posting, I consider the best evidence suggests that the story of the magical birth of Jesus was a later addition to the gospel story, made long after the death of Jesus. The earliest writings in the Christian Bible (the New Testament') are the epistles of Paul. Despite his conferring with those who had known Jesus, he makes not mention of the elements we celebrate during the Advent season. Nor do the earliest and latest gospels in our possession (Mark and John), nor either can these stories be found in the other gospels that have come to light in recent times.

Despite the flimsy warrant for the Christmas story, I do enjoy this time. The exchange of gifts and the celebration of the possibility that the divine is part of human being, if we will only let it so. In the view of many serious Christian thinkers and in mine also, this is the fundamental message of the doctrine of the Incarnation. I love the stories from the first World War telling us that, at this time, opposing troops in the trenches of France, took a 'holy day' to join in the sharing of Christmas rations. It is a story of great power and beauty.

Many Christian pastors, through their original theological training and later reading, have become aware of the new understanding we have of the Bible and its fundamental message.This has come as a result of the study of these writings using the same methods as have been applied to other ancient writings. These scholars have wrestled with the issue of what is the core message that these writings have for us today. Beginning with the Jewish philosopher and scholar, Spinoza, they also have valiantly and rigorously sought to define a new meaning of 'god' in relation to the world.

I am sure that Jesus, as with other sages who have worked had at living in harmony with divine humanity, has a message for our times. What a good thing it might be were those who portray themselves as his publicists and evangelists were to get serious about discovering this and telling us in plain terms how to experience the breaking out of the kingdom of god in these troubled times.

In an interesting article in New York Times, Eric Weiner has something to say about the need for a better approach to becoming 'religious' (remember that to be religious is to find values that actually order our mode of being in the world). Weiner concluded,

"We need a Steve Jobs of religion. Someone (or ones) who can invent not a new religion but, rather, a new way of being religious."