Faith Challenges: It Ain't All Comfort

It’s time to sit around and wait. Well, if the hurry, rush, and business of the holiday season gave us the option to sit around. Regardless, we are just entering a time of waiting. It is a time of preparation. It is a time of anticipating. It is a time to reflect on what is yet to come. We are not all that good at waiting. We like to fill in the time with things to do, people to see, and places to go. I tend to carry at least one book with me to occupy myself when I know there is a high chance that I will be waiting. Advent, however, is not quite the same as sitting around the doctor’s office in anticipation of my appointment, awaiting the doctor’s return after a review of my chart, of sitting in line awaiting blood work. Advent’s waiting has more to do with getting myself ready along the lines of training for a marathon, prepping for an exam, or preparing for the coming of a baby. We await our celebration of Jesus’ birth, yet we likewise live in the expectation of Christ’s...

We gather on Thanksgiving to reflect on all the blessings of God bestowed on us. We think back to stories we have heard of native peoples supplying the pilgrims with food to enable their survival through a bleak winter. We gather to celebrate harvest and rejoice in knowing that God has provided for us. We gather to join our hearts with one another, to remember that all good things come from God who sends wind, rain, and sunshine for the benefit of all. We gather to remind ourselves that we indeed depend upon God. Is it a formality, or are our lives truly built on the confidence declared in our practices of Thanksgiving? The psalmist begins his words with a declaration that Yahweh is indeed good, that steadfast love is God’s essential character. John Wesley would likely have used the term grace if writing this psalm. The concept is essentially the same. God is good, because God is gracious. God is gracious, because God is loving. God is loving, because God is gracious. God is grac...

As we move into Thanksgiving and toward the Christmas season, I find that some reflection on how we deal with concepts of generosity is helpful. How we think about the poor and needy around us is important, as it directs not only what we give, but how we go about it. Our society has come a long way from the era of the Great Depression. We have made many advancements in science, medicine, education, transportation, communications, and economics. We became the world’s superpower and hold a level of influence on the world stage that is unprecedented in human history. We have also shifted toward considering poverty as antithetical to being American. Indeed, we have begun to respond to poverty as more than a lack of access to resources. We have begun treating poverty as a moral failure. As a result, we blame the poor for their poverty and treat them with disdain because they dare not be rich. We don’t speak of it in quite those words, but that is the force of so many of our attitu...