“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.” Isaiah 61:1b-2a

I want to share with you some serious thoughts about an uncommon Chirstmas theme. Last Sunday, I studied the ‘official’ scripture for the day: Isaiah 61:1-4, which drew my attention to Luke 4:14-30. Then I went back and looked at Leviticus 25. Go ahead and read those, and come back. In Leviticus, God decrees a ‘Jubilee Year’ every 50 years. Basically, the whole economy goes back to zero. People return to their own hometown, slaves are released, debts are canceled, crops are not sown or harvested. (And this would follow a regular Sabbath year, so the land would not be sown for two years). God also stipulated that no Israelites were to be treated as slaves, because God had already redeemed everyone from slavery in Egypt. People were to redeem the debts of their relatives, so they would not fall into poverty. (The problem Ruth and Naomi had is that there was no next-of-kin to ‘redeem’ them – that is take them in, so they would not live in poverty).

It seems like such a radical idea to us, but the truth is that it was a radical idea then too! Israel never had a Jubilee year, even though God told them he would bless them beyond measure if they obeyed this difficult decree. He told them the land would require a Jubilee, and if they did not take a Jubilee, and leave the land fallow and return all that they own to the Lord, he would take it from them forcibly. It seemed the concept of redemption through a Jubilee was important to God.

So fast forward to Isaiah. God has kept his word. The Israelites never took a Jubilee, so God took everything from them, because they did not willingly give it to him. He sent them into exile, made them slaves again for 70 years (just about the number of years needed to make up for all those missed Jubilees!) So Isaiah is telling his people of a new Jubilee, when God will redeem them once again. In fact, the ‘year of the Lord’s favor’ is a pretty direct reference to the ‘Jubilee’ year of the old scriptures. Since the Israelites are exiles awaiting freedom and not land owners and creditors, this is good news; and end to their misery is coming soon!

Then in Luke, Jesus finds this very passage of Isaiah, reads it in the synagogue, and proclaims the scripture fulfilled that day. He would now redeem God’s people, free the captives who are slaves to sin, the Law, false righteousness. The religious economy would be turned upside down. Those who were ‘poor in spirit’ would now be blessed! Those who were ‘righteous’ would now be un-righteous! Those who were sinners and undeserving would inherit the Kingdom of God. Those who lived in exile from God would now live closely to him.

This should have been good news.

But you know the rest of the story. The people chased him out of town, and Jesus observed that only in his home town does a prophet have no honor. The people did not want to give up all the righteousness, all the piety, all the religion they had saved up by their own work. It was an insult to think that God would need to redeem them, not from slavery, but from their sins.

And it’s the same with us. God declares a Jubilee, but rather than looking at the blessings he wants to give us, we look at what he’s taking away. We hold back all the things we hold dear and say, ‘No, I must have this. I can’t give up that. I’ve worked so hard for those!’ The things we own, the righteousness we build for ourselves ends up owning and enslaving us! Our desire to follow God becomes stifled because it conflicts with our own interests. This is just the case with the rich young ruler. All the wealth he ‘owned’ ended up enslaving him. He could not boldly follow Jesus, because of the fear of losing his belongings. God wants to pour out immeasurable blessings on us by freeing us from what enslaves. But we look at what has enslaved us and feel we just cannot do without it. Like an abused woman who defends and depends on the one who abuses her. We tell ourselves that the ‘masters’ in our life are under our control, are not all that bad, are really quite good. So we remain slaves in exile who need a Jubilee.

Christmas is about the gift of Jesus and the Jubilee he brings – the end of exile from God, enslavement to sin and death. But we will never see Jesus’ Jubilee and rejoice if we hold too tightly onto all the little worldly charms He tries to pry from our fingers. “Freedom in Christ” means freedom from all that ensnares – all the vices and lies that God wants to resuce us from. I hope this Christmas you find the joy of God’s Jubilee – freedom from all that has enslaved your life and the joy of being redeemed as a slave is redeemed from his master.

Hey blog friends. Sorry it’s been several days since I laid some thoughts down for you. Rest assured though, the break was for a very good reason. Something special is in the works.

Christmas is almost here, and with it, millions of gifts will be exchanged. Most of these gifts, while thoughtful will be forgettable by the time we’re into the new year. Really, how many gifts did you recieve as a child that you still remember today? It’s only the truly special gifts that get remembered – like Ralphie’s Red Rider bebe gun. Or sometimes parents like to teach their children a little Christmas lesson that sticks in their minds for a long time.

One of the most memorable gifts I recieved was one I had worked to obtain for almost a year. I was really into legos when I was a kid. I would pore through the little catalogues dreaming about all the sets I wanted. One day I set my sights on the holy grail of lego sets. It was an enormous pirate ship. Not the wimpy little clipper ship my little brother was content with. This pirate ship could absolutely thrash that little dinghy. So I started saving up my money. It would be quite a feat for an eight-year-old to save $100 in $1-2 increments each week. I was nearly there by Christmas, but not quite. But you know what? Santa rewarded my frugalness of the last 10 months by ordering his elves to send me that pirate ship! Awesome.

Each Christmas morning, we’d find a letter from Santa, which was inexplicably written in our mother’s handwriting. He’d tell us we had been pretty good, but there was always room for improvement. We should not fight so much, and be more generous toward one another, for example. Nice try, mom.

Perhaps the second best gift of all time was a Nintendo 64. My bro and I knew we were getting it because the lady at Toys-R-Us screwed up and left a message on the answering machine stating that our Nintendo 64 had arrived and was on layaway. Dad was ticked, because they had actually decided to not purchase it. It is strictly against store policy to name the item on the phone message lest some children who are not allowed to answer the phone (i.e. my brother and I) hear it. So Dad barked at them until they gave it to him for free. Anyway, Christmas morning, we’re opening gifts and they’ve all been unwrapped…except the huge box with both our names on it. We knew what was inside that box. Then we opened it up…and it was socks and underwear. Our hearts sank for a brief moment. (get it…?) But my brother refused to believe that cruel rouse and dug furiously, desperately through the unneeded undergarments to find the Nintendo buried below. We spent the rest of the day running around in new undies playing that thing until it nearly melted. The only factor that caused us to give that thing a break was that Mom totally hogged it whenever she got a turn, and we couldn’t stand watching her play with her feeble skills.

We’d also find each Christmas or birthday that our list was absolutely without fail never fully granted. There would always be an item or two that we would have to wait a bit longer for, or do without completely. I am now thankful for this sly tactic that always left a bittersweet taste in our mouths on Christmas morning. It was such a subtle yet poignant lesson each year.

I think my dad relished taking as long as possible on Christmas morning to get up, dress himself, make his coffee, put on Harry Connick Jr’s Christmas album and mosey his way downstairs where my brother and I sat by the tree, waiting to open our gifts. And we didn’t all tear into them like a pack of hyenas either. We were civilized and took turns. It made the whole experience much better and last longer, and that’s good.

A guy in church last week was telling about how when he was a kid, one year all the kids at Grandma’s house were being a bit ungrateful for the presents they had recieved. So Grandma rounds all the children up and excitedly asks them to go find their favorite gifts. Each child hurried to retrieve what they were most excited about that morning. Then Grandma gathered the favorite gift of each child and told them the gifts would be going to charity.

I don’t have any kids, but I can’t wait to have kids now, just to pull this on them if they step out of line.

What was Christmas like at your house? What was your all time best gift? Any bitter Christmas lessons you had to be taught, or that you are now teaching your children?

Dear Jesus, thank you for this good food. Amen.

Thus was the family mealtime prayer at my house for the better part of my early childhood, and an integral part of my spiritual formation.

Last time, I talked about praying and speaking in front of others, and I’m still on this kick with prayer, so we’re going with it. Mealtime prayers or ‘grace’ is a cornerstone of Christian culture. If you grew up in a Christian home, it may be the first prayer you learned besides ‘Now I lay me down to sleep.’ The dinner grace is repeated so often, it fuses itself to the identity of the family, so much so, that every other dinner grace seems wrong.

Consider the following:

The first time I visited my cousins, they recited that old ‘God is great, God is good’ prayer. WRONG.

The first time I had dinner at a friend’s house, they sang their prayer. DOUBLE WRONG.

That prayer wasn’t the first thing to go terribly wrong that evening. I also discovered that other moms set the table differently, prepare mashed potatoes differently, and cut our meat differently. As a child, it’s very hard to accept the strange, oftentimes wrong ways other moms do things, even if the potatoes are better than your mom’s.

Thus, by this anecdotal evidence, I can conclude that God found our grace to be superior, and therefore, our meals were more blessed, nutritious and tasty.

I don’t think it is possible for a man over 40 to say grace without using the line, ‘bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies.’

These days, my wife and I don’t have a set prayer, we just pray ‘as the Spirit leads.’ But sometimes the Spirit seems to be leading my wife for a long time, and I’m secretly afraid the food is getting cold while God is blessing it because I’m a jerk like that.

Sometimes we like to pray ‘at’ each other. Like my wife prays, ‘Lord, bless this food, and please help my husband to stop being such a tool.’

Some pastors exist almost for the sole purpose of saying grace over the potluck dinner. This occurs in the case of a church run by a ‘matriarch’ or ‘patriarch,’ a layperson who seems to own a controlling interest in every aspect of the church.

Pastor’s like to show off how holy their kids are to other pastors and/or test the holiness of other pastors’ kids. So my family is over at another pastor’s family’s home for dinner, and I’m just a little tyke. The host pastor tries to test me, you know, see if my pops is doing his job right with me by saying, “At our house, we pray before we eat.” So I bow my cute little holy head, fold my hands like sweet baby Jesus, and prayed the socks off that dinner. Match point, me.

The prayer which I recited at the start of this post was our grace for several years. Until dad had the bright idea of writing a new grace for Thanksgiving. Which my brother and I would recite. In front of the entire family. Cute.

My grandmother could swear up a storm. Normally it didn’t matter, since Grandpa was deaf. She’d work herself into a frenzy over Thanksgiving dinner. Then, when all was almost ready, everyone would be circled around for grace, and Grandma would tear out of the kitchen looking like she was about to pass out. She was known to get the ball rolling on the meal with the line, “Say the —- prayer!” That sufficiently set the tone for solemnly praising God for the manifold blessings He hath bestowed upon us.

And now, since I’m a pastor, I am the de facto grace giver for every family function on my wife’s side. That’s the thing I do. Aunt Jean knits, uncle Steve gets hammered, and Matt, the new guy says grace.

On my side its different since we have three preachers. If there’s one thing preachers don’t like it’s sharing the spotlight. So we keep it civil. We just keep a strict and carefully recorded ‘grace rotation’ going from one holiday to the next. This Christmas, it’s John’s turn.
Just kidding. We all pray one after another, trying to one-up the last one. Whenever someone throws down and makes the last guy look like an amatuer, everyone goes, “Oooooh,” or “What do you say to that, John?” with their heads still bowed.
Okay, I’m just kidding with that too. We all just pray simultaneously, trying to talk over one another, while holding hands in a circle. Our dinners are very blessed.

Did your family say grace faithfully? What was it? Did it evolve over time? Did every other grace seem somehow less holy?

Preacher, that sermon was just awful!

Are you a shy person? Do you have a hard time speaking to others? I sure used to be. Maybe your interpersonal skills are okay, but you have a hard time speaking in front of a group. That describes 98% of people, regardless of the size of the group. You probably will decline an invitation to pray in front of a group. After all, what would you say? And certainties beyond all certainties, you would never give a sermon in front of your church. Just out of the question!

I don’t need any documentation to know that even after decades of listening to sermons and hearing literally hundreds of prayers spoken by pastors, 98% of people feel incapable of public praying or speaking. Were all of these prayers and sermons delivered by seminary trained pastors amazing, earth shattering, bring-fire-down-from-heaven oratories? No, not even a fraction of them. Most were probably pretty mediocre. Yet the recipients of those prayers and homilies feel they are incapable, not just of doing it better, but doing it at all!

Chances are your pastor has some patterns in his speech, some pet phrases he likes to use. If someone were to just recite those phrases at random, and read a scripture verse, it could likely be mistaken for a sermon!

What is the fear? That you would be laughed at? That God would be dismayed at your lousy abilities? That your terrible sermon would actually influence an audience member to renounce his faith? I guarantee the scenario at the beginning of my post has never happened. And if you got up to preach, it certainly would not happen to you.

I’ve written before about an English pastor from the 1800s before – Charles Spurgeon, a fascinating person, and a hero to me. I won’t belabor you with the details of his life, that’s what Wikipedia is for. What’s important today is that he preached to 10 million people. This was at a time when London had 2 million people. There were barely 10 million in the entire nation! This was in great halls with no microphones at all. He was the most famous man in all of England, save the royal family. His impact on the church cannot be overstated.

On the evening of Jan 6, 1850 as a boy of 15, he was walking to church. The heavy snow convinced him to not walk all the way to his church. He rather turned around to a Methodist church which he had not attended before. The snow had resulted in a very small crowd – maybe a dozen. Among those absent was the preacher!

What were the people to do? They couldn’t have church without the preacher! Someone to walk them through the ritual they all knew by heart! Oh dear! What are these laypeople to do?

So a layman walked to the pulpit. He had not prepared a sermon, but his heart was prepared. He opened his Bible to Isaiah 45:22 and spoke, plainly and honestly from his heart and nothing more. It probably was not a long message. He probably did not have much in the way of ‘illustrations.’ He was probably not dynamic or funny. Perhaps his voice cracked, or he lost his train of thought once, or he paced in nervousness. It was just a message he had scribbled out in his heart.

Now get this,

Young Charles had attended church all his life, but his heart had not been opened to the truth of Christ until that night. He was converted that night by the humble oratorcle offering of an untrained, unprepared layman, who probably thought himself the most unqualified person to speak at all.

Yet it was that layman’s bravery and honesty which opened a heart that no polished sermon had ever been able to. Because that man stood up that night, Spurgeon evangelized the whole of England and beyond. That man could not have known what God would use that little sermon to do. If God had told him, he’d have chickened out! Converting the most important evanglist of our generation is waaaaay too important for you to entrust to me!

I want to shake people and say ‘You are qualified! Get up there and tell us how it is! Tell us about Jesus!’ Maybe you’ll never give a sermon from a pulpit. That’s fine. But there are lots of different types of sermons – they’re just disguised as other things!

What keeps you in your seat?