Upcoming Events December 1 – Parent’s Night Out December 2 – Hanging of the Greens Set-Up December 3 – First Sunday of Advent/ Christmas Caroling to Shut-Ins December 6, 13, 20 – Advent Book Study December 8 – Game Night at The Grove DAVID’S DATELINE DECEMBER 2017 Newsletter December 10 – Cantata (9:50 AM & 2:00 PM) December 17 – Holiday Concert with Tim & Lyn Sunday Worship, 8:30 & 9:50 a.m. Church School, 9:50 a.m. December 21 – Longest Night/Blue Christmas Service Church Office Christmas Eve Morning – 10:00 AM Worship Hours: Monday – Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Phone: 937-434-2131, Fax: 937-434-1913 Christmas Eve Services - 5:00, 7:30 & 10:00 p.m. www.davidsucc.org Ministers of David's Church - All David's People December 25 & 26 – Office Closed Senior Pastor Brian Q. Newcomb Associate Pastor Michelle Wilkey January 1 – Office Closed From the Pastor’s Desk… Reactions to the onset of the Christmas season tend to arrive in the extreme. For instance, immediately after Halloween (actually, maybe a few days earlier), I saw two kinds of messages begin to dominate my news feed on Facebook. The first group were those people who were very excited with the prospect of filling the air with Christmas music. Their meme’s described the joy they felt as they celebrated the immediate onslaught of carols and secular Christmas music pumped through retailers’ speakers, on TV commercials and even on their own music systems as they dove head first into the festive spirit of the December holy day. The other group, was equally vehement in their response. Some who like Christmas music per se, expressed the need to hold off until after the Thanksgiving holiday, arguing that everything has its time and place, and the appropriate season for Christmas music begins in the retail holiday of Black Friday (which more and more often is encroaching onto the traditional family celebrations of Thanksgiving, much to my dismay). But others, were all “Bah” and “Humbug,” dreading the endless versions of “Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus right down Santa Claus lane.” And, I have to admit, I kind of agree with both arguments. While there are some Christmas albums that I feel a need to listen to every year (and that list includes: The Chieftains’ The Bells of Dublin, The Blind Boys of Alabama’s Go Tell It On the Mountain, Over the Rhine’s The Darkest Night of the Year, Elvis Presley’s If Every Day Was Like Christmas, Tony Bennett’s Snowfall; The Christmas Album, and two various artist collections, A Very Special Christmas featuring pop and rock acts, and Noel by my friends in the Christian alternative band, The Choir), it certainly can feel like too much of a good thing when you can start seeing Christmas displays in stores right next to the Halloween costumes and candy. It’s a hard balance to strike, and I believe that’s so because, as Charlie Brown warned us years ago, Christmas has lost its meaning for many in the mass commercialization and retail emphasis that distracts from the holy events at the heart of the season. Which is why I think it’s important to not rush to Christmas, but to settle in and live the experience of anticipation and hope that the observance of Advent allows. So let me state the obvious, for many in the world around us the success of the Holy Season of Christmas will be judged by whether they got the presents they desired, whether all the family behaved around the festive meal, and retailers, Government officials and the media will be looking at the economic indicators to see if sales out performed previous years. But for the Christian church, the question is about whether we are closer to “peace on earth, and goodwill to all the people.” And it’s helpful to not get too abstract when we think about this “peace” and “goodwill” that the arrival of the Christ- child is said to portend. One of my favorite Advent scriptures is found at the beginning of Isaiah, Chapter 40, when the prophet cries out: “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid… A voice cries out: ‘in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill me made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places plain.” So, in this time of preparation, and waiting, longing and hoping, we might pay attention to the worries in our world, what is going on that we need comfort for, where in our world do we see the need to lift up those who lay destitute in the low places? While many of us probably realize that in the world where there is war and violence, and whole swaths of the globe’s population is living with poverty and disease, we are those who live more comfortably in the hills and high places. What does it mean for us, then, to seek to comfort the hurting in our world? For that answer, we probably need to hear the words Jesus’ mother Mary is said to have lifted up in Luke chapter one, so we can see what meaning and hope God’s people have attached to the birth of the promised Messiah: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior… for the Mighty One has done great things for me, holy is his name… He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Lk 1: 46 -55). This text, and the many others like it throughout the Gospels, belie the remark often made, that “the Gospel is not political.” Surely it’s a mistake to make the Gospel message partisan, for God is not a Democrat or a Republican, but the goals of the Gospel’s good news do often require political action and influence. If we’re going to be advocate for real peace on earth, we have to call our nation to act on behalf of global cooperation and an end to conflicts… which we all know is no easy thing to hope for. Plus, these and other texts, especially Matt. 25’s powerful parable about the sheep and goats remind us of Jesus’ deep compassion and desire that we meet the needs of “the least of these, my sisters and brothers,” inviting us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bring care to the sick, visit the imprisoned. These are the lowly, that Mary’s song says, are to be lifted up. Which brings me to the words of German theologian Deitrich Bonhoeffer, who became a martyr by working to thwart the efforts of Hitler’s Third Reich and the Nazi goal to exterminate those they came to believe were unworthy: Jews, folk who were gay or lesbian, all people of color, anyone not Aryan. Bonhoeffer’s call to radical faith challenges us to this day: "Christianity stands or falls with its protest against violence, pride of power, and its plea for the weak. [We] adjust [ourselves] far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world, far more than they are now." So, as we walk together through this Advent season, I invite you to consider with me what it means to pray and act on behalf of the proclamation of “peace on earth, goodwill to all the people.” As Pope Francis said recently, you pray for people who are hungry, and then you feed them. “That’s how prayer works,” he said. So let us pray for peace, and then let us advocate for peace, let us strive in our lives to act as those “peacemakers” that Jesus seeks to bless in the Beatitudes. And let us pray for the well-fare of those in the world who are the least of these, those who are un- or under- employed, and thus hungry or struggling economically, and then let us work to feed them, and call our government to ease the suffering of the less fortunate through sensible policies that lift people out of poverty to meaningful work. Let us pray for those who are without access to health care or health insurance, especially those living with illness, and then let us advocate to our legislators for healthcare for all. Let us pray for those who are victims of discrimination, due to race, religion, sexual orientation or culture, and let us work together for a just world for all, where we can embrace diversity and dwell together in the warm delight of “Shalom.” Only when we let the scriptures of Advent and Christmas promise speak to the real anxieties, hurts, and needs in and around us, can we understand the longing and hope that the birth of Jesus was believed to fulfill in the people of his day. And only when we have committed ourselves to live in the world, loving those who Jesus loved, advocating and working for the lifting up of “the least of these” will the true spirit of Christmas be found in us. So, while we wait, sing this carol with me: “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear… O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by thy justice here; disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight… O come Desire of nations bind all peoples in one heart and mind.