Angels of Advent

On the one hand, I am as convinced as any other curmudgeon that angelogy is where crazy goes to live. On the other hand, I am intrigued by the angelic message, "Fear not." Holding both those thoughts in mind, Peter Leithart offers a helpful meditation on angelophanies over at the First Things website.

Why attendance is low on Good Friday

Thanks, Wumo.

A reasonably merry Christmas album

You've got to give She & Him credit for effort. In their eight years of collaboration, Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward have released two Christmas albums, which makes that particular genre a full one-third of their output to date. As with their previous yuletide outing, however, the duo is, at best, adequate on Christmas Party. The arrangements are overly spare, which is odd given that one of the things that made their Volumes 1 & 2 so enchanting were lush soundscapes. Particularly objectionable are Deschanel's vocals on "A Marshmallow World:" she rushes through the lyrics as though trying for a new land speed record, and stomps on the line "What if spring is late?" until it's nothing but a lifeless corpse.

Far more satisfying is Jane Lynch's A Swingin' Little Christmas! featuring (deep breath now) Kate Flannery and Tim Davis with the Tony Guerrero Quintet (to which I was directed by Bullseye's annual holiday special). It's really more of a band than a solo effort, and the better for it. They've got a sense of humor, verve, and class (maybe in that order, maybe not). It may not be the Christmas album for the ages, but it's the best I've heard this year.

Speaking of Christmas albums for the ages, at the top of the heap remains A Charlie Brown Christmas from the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Nonetheless, I wish we could all admit that its children's choir rendition of "Christmastime Is Here" is as creepy as creepy gets.

Christmastide is beer

It being the 12th day of Christmas already, I had better get to the winter warmers I've newly discovered and enjoyed this yuletide season. Interestingly, none have a specifically Christmas theme, perhaps becaues all lean toward hoppy and pale rather than the stoutness most frequently associated with a belly like a bowlful of jelly.

Hitachino Nest Celebration Ale is a lovely white ale, very hop-forward, and the first from a Japanese brewer over which I've actually gotten excited.

Brrr, from Widmer Brothers, is a hoppy red ale. The hops and malts nicely balance each other; the mellowness I associate with reds gives it a nice finish.

Elysian Brewing Company's BiFrost is smooth, slightly sweet, and with just a hint of hop bitterness. Intriguing.

Finally, it turns out Left Hand's Polestar Pilsner isn't a seasonal. I'm glad to learn it's available year-round, but I'm including it here because I have just encountered it during my annual Christmastide ale exploration. It's got the crispness and hoppy finish for which I love pilsners. This may become my go-to session beer.

The end of Christmastide means the beginning of the long, miserable winter slog. Perhaps these winter warmers will help you get through the dark eternity which is February.

We wish you "A Dave Brubeck Christmas"

I'm not ready to call an end to all hopes for a stunning new Christmas album coming out of left field, but, as is too often the case, 2015 is definitely a washout. Since I've been spending much of the past year exploring Dave Brubeck's catalogue, both with his legendary quartet and as a headliner, I decided to buy a copy of A Dave Brubeck Christmas. Brubeck plays solo piano on mostly traditional Christmas songs, plus a couple originals. Some interesting arrangements highlight his strengths in composition, but overall it's a marvelous showcase for his depth and sensitivity as a player. His rendering of "The Christmas Song" deserves to become that chestnut's jazz instrumental standard.

It's Christmas time. Enjoy the great Christmas tunes as offered up by one of the true greats.

A text without a context

For Pentecost this last Lord's Day, I preached from John 15 and 16, in the course of which it occurred to me that many Christians might like to hear their long-winded pastors echo Jesus' words in John 16:12: "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now."

Why I Am a Catechetical Preacher (If “Catechesis” Is Defined Broadly Enough)

By the time I graduated from seminary, I was committed to consecutive expository preaching. I believed this was the method best suited to bring out the whole counsel of God’s Word and to guard both the congregation and preacher against unhealthy overemphasis on any  particualr doctrinal point. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, there are basically four ways in which the preacher can determine his text for the coming Sunday morning:

1) Choose his texts one by one as each Lord’s Day comes;

2) Preach through a book in a consecutive, expository manner;

3) Preach according to a catechism; or

4) Follow the Church calendar.

Method 1 poses certain dangers for the preacher, if not the congregation. If he chooses his texts each week, he runs the risk of avoiding exegetical, homiletical, and doctrinal challenges. Moreover, he may very well stick to a few tried and true topics, flattening out both his own and his congregation’s grasp of Scripture.

While catechetical preaching brings exposure to the full breadth of confessional doctrine, I must confess I was prejudiced against it by exposure only to its worst form. I had never heard a catechetical sermon before I took an elective course in preaching taught by a prominent minister in the Dutch Reformed tradition. One course requirement was to prepare a catechetical sermon outline; mine was graded down because I submitted an exposition of a Scripture text which illustrated the catechetical question’s doctrine rather than an exposition of the words of the catechism itself. 

I also had a presbyterian professor who encouraged the students to consider catechetical preaching. As an example of why this would be helpful, he pointed to a general ignorance amongst many of the assurance Christian parents may take that their children who die in infancy are in covenant with Christ. However, this is not a truth taught in the Shorter Catechism; it seemed to me, then, I would more likely have occasion to proclaim this doctrine if I preached through books of the Bible. And, in fact, this has been my experience: consecutive expository preaching does introduce a range of subjects much broader than found in our confessional standards, and for that reason ought be pursued.

Many, perhaps most, OP ministers have never considered following the Church calendar in their preaching, save for the occasional Easter or Christmas Eve message, but I grew up in mainline Churches where this is the rule, and some of my favorite reformed writers recommend it. Still, it struck me as unduly repetitive. Moreover, the annual returns to Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection struck me as at odds with the linearity of Biblical history. Christ’s Cross work was once and for all; a repetitive cycling back to it seemed to undermine this all-important truth.

I readily grant that choosing a book of the Bible to preach through is still a choice, one which pastors and sessions should make together with a weather eye toward the congregation’s needs in that season. Nonetheless, any given book of the Bible has “surprises” (I preached through 1 Corinthians in order to discuss Church unity, and found myself delivering sermons on sex and gender issues besides!) which will keep the preacher on his exegetical toes and, often, address previously unknown needs within the body. Entering the pastorate, I could think of no reason I would ever do anything other than consecutive expository preaching.

What changed me was a pastoral consideration of my congregation’s needs and how best to address them from the pulpit. Over the years, I discovered some fairly basic doctrines, such as the nature of the Spirit’s work in the present age, are not very well fixed in the minds of many (who often expressed a desire to understand it better). During state elections, congregants asked me why we should even care whether homosexual marriage is legal. It became clear to me that both sections of our Catechisms (what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man, WSC #3) need to be set before our people in a systematic way. Accordingly, our session agreed a number of years ago that I would preach a catechetical sermon once a month, after our fellowship meal.

From the beginning of my ministry, I had been beset by complaints that I did not preach an Easter sermon. Beside the fact that I was preaching on texts the session had chosen, I would usually respond, “Why Easter and not Pentecost?” The danger of such a question, of course, is that one may ask it of oneself. “Why not Pentecost?” What would happen if people heard a sermon about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the New Testament Church once a year? Might they begin to realize every Christian has Spiritual gifts? Likewise, four weeks of Advent each year may begin to help the believer ground all his expectations and hopes in our Lord’s Second Advent, when he will raise up our bodies in glory and make us perfectly blessed in body and soul forever.

That is, I came to realize that while we presbyterians have our Larger and Shorter Catechisms, the Church universal has a catechism in the Church year. In Hebrews 6:1-2, the Apostle reminds us of the basic catechetical doctrines of repentance and faith, baptism, ordination, the resurrection, and eternal judgment. These themes are visited in Advent (Christ’s Second Coming and baptism alongside John the Baptist’s ministry), Epiphany (the revelation of Christ to the world), and Eastertide with Pentecost (Christ’s and our resurrections), sometimes at greater length and in more detail than is found in the Shorter Catechism.

And so we have our current practice at Park Hill Presbyterian Church. From Advent through Pentecost, I preach texts in the morning which have been determined by the Revised Common Lectionary. People get Christmas and Easter, and Pentecost as well! The remainder of the calendar year, it’s consecutive preaching through some book of the Bible. In the evenings, I preach through another Bible book, with the exception of that monthly catechetical sermon. In this way, we are shored up in the essentials of our faith: not only our presbyterian faith, but our catholic and apostolic faith.

Sadly, but perhaps inevitably, recent seminary graduates get some things wrong. Thankfully, the ministry of Word and sacrament provides many learning opportunities, and sometimes both pastors and congregations learn from them.

The War over Christmas: after action report

It's the day after Epiphany. I took down the Christmas decorations in my study, and so now is a good time for a reflection on the 2014 edition of the War over Christmas. Once again, the Facebook was replete with aggressive posts from otherwise quite pleasant Christians stating their intention to forcefully wish "Merry Christmas," with all vim and vigor, on any who might dare say "Happy Holidays" to them, no matter the circumstances. Despite the evident fears of many that Christmas would be abolished by presidential executive action (which I do not share), Advent and Christmastide progressed unhindered. Thanks to Redbox, the curmudgelings were even able to see A Charlie Brown Christmas for the first time.

Also for the first time that I can remember, all the "War on Christmas" rhetoric actually began getting to me. I began to fear that saying "Merry Christmas" to a store clerk would be taken as a deliberate assault in the culture wars, and so chose to continue with the monosyllabic grunts I use year-round whenever leaving the house. Thus it was Mrs. Curmudgeon who, at the check-out at the local purveyor of bargain-priced organic produce, accidentally let slip a "Merry Christmas" and saw the clerk visibly flinch. Christmas is surviving the War on Christmas just fine, but civility is definitely a casualty.

I'd call it ironic if I weren't fond of irony, so let's call it sad instead. The Church has historically celebrated Christmas so we might have twelve days to focus on the remarkable fact of the Incarnation. At any time of year, we should marvel that the infinite God became a finite man, and the Creator thereby honored and affirmed his own image as it is found in all his human creatures. How sad that Christians choose to dispense with civility, a basic expression of our Fifth Commandment duty to honor our fellow image-bearers (Shorter Catechism #54), at precisely the season when our Lord's model of goodwill should be foremost in our minds and conduct.

The end is nigh (Yuletide edition)

Look, I get the idea of Christmas pajamas, and kind of almost like it. Mrs. Curmudgeon and I gift the curmudgelings a fresh set each Christmas Eve evening, and they've come to look forward to the tradition to the extent that Thing 1 just asked whether he'd be getting pajamas this year. (Or maybe that was dread in his voice. Hard to say.) 

Of course, said pajamas are purchased from the heavily-discounted Christmas-remainder bins at Target sometime in early January, so part of the fun is seeing whether I guessed their sizes correctly from a year out. For those with a different sense of fun and more disposable income, retailers offer pajamas at full price, and there's even Pajamagram, which offers by-Christmas-Eve-guaranteed delivery and pajama sets for the whole family, including cats and dogs.

Including cats and dogs.

When future archaeologists dig up these pictures, they will nod ruefully to themselves and categorize the evidence under "Signs of the Inevitable End."

Christmastime is beer (2014)

I have to admit that I've become a little fussy with regard to winter warmers. Since the species tends toward malt, caramel, and chocolate notes, and I tend to prefer hop, citrus, and pine accents, even some of my old favorite Christmas beers no longer appeal. Nonetheless, as I just had a glass of Full Sail's "Wreck the Halls" at the Falling Rock Taphouse, I'm reminded that the Christmas brewing season is wide enough to embrace even an bitters-loving curmudgeon. In addition to "Wreck the Halls," I'm looking forward to Pyramid's "Snow Cap," New Belgium's "Accumulation" (still the archetypal white IPA), and the 2014 Sierra Nevada "Celebration Ale."

Christmastime is still beer!

Be not afraid

One of our daughters has a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. What happened was this: we brought her home, at birth, as a foster child. At the age of 16 months, she left our home to live with her biological father. Over the course of six months, he descended into drug use and violent crime, and she returned to us at 22 months. This mess inflicted pre-verbal trauma, which means that because of her young age, she literally lacked the vocabulary to describe or define what had occurred to her. Over the last several years, we have worked with her to construct a narrative which enables her to understand what happened during those six months.

To simplify, the narrative is something like this: she was taken away and bad things happened, but we came and got her, and now she is safe. She still (just this afternoon, in fact) asks me questions like "What would you do if a bad guy tried to grab me?" I ask back, "What would I do?" To which she replies, "You would punch him in the face and make him go away." Another way to understand her version of events is that she was kidnapped, but we rescued her, and now we (but me, as her father with a Superman fixation, in particular) will make sure nothing bad will ever happen to her ever again.

Being as I lack certain divine attributes such as omniscience, omnipresence, or omnipotence, it's an incredibly flawed narrative, but it works because she's (just barely) five years old: as she grows up, we'll be working to nuance it a fair bit. I bring all this up because the story my daughter tells herself sounds to me like something I've heard and seen elsewhere.

I'm basically a middle-of-the-road presbyterian, and have had a difficult time understanding why people fall under the sway of the loopy rhetoric of the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches' "Biblical Confession for Uniting Church and Family" or the obviously questionable parenting advice dispensed by the likes of Bill Gothard. A few years ago, though, I participated in a panel discussion with a Big Name in the family-integrated/homeschooling-only crowd. The audience contained a goodly number of people from said crowd, but a few curious members of my own congregation as well.

Truth be told, I set up said panel, and had encouraged the Big Name to approach it as an opportunity to win over a new audience from our congregation and others in attendance. I can't say whether he thought of it in that way or considered how to present his message accordingly. Sadly, the audio from that evening was lost, but I can say that his pitch sounded pretty much the same as I've heard it from him on numerous other occasions. To my ears, it ran something like "The secular humanist atheist conspiracy is very scary and wants to take away your children and turn them into homosexual prostitutes. I will give you a few very simple steps which will guarantee you and your family are safe." He had ten minutes to present, and another five to respond to the other speakers, and I'd say he gave about 80% of his time to the former sentence and the rest to the latter.

From what I heard later from members of our congregation, his pitch failed to land with any of them; most found him just plain weird and mildly hysterical. I think I know why: they aren't afraid the secular humanist atheist homosexual conspiracy will recruit their children the moment they're out of sight. Some people are afraid, of course, and it seems to me the easy-answer crowd is feeding their fears. The truth is, the world is a complicated place, and the parenting strategies which work in some families don't work for others; the same can be said for educational strategies as well. (As we've learned in our home, the same strategies don't always work for every kid in the same family!) But this common-sense reality isn't acknowledged by the Big Names in the homeschooling-only crowd. To put the matter bluntly, it seems to me they treat worried Christian parents like a traumatized five year-old: "Yes, you should be scared, but don't worry because I will keep you safe with my very simple recipe for life."

This Easter I'll be preaching again from Matthew 28, where both the angel of the Lord and our resurrected Lord himself tell the two Marys, "Do not be afraid." Jesus Christ has risen: the strife is over and the battle done. A movement which infantilizes parents by preying on their worst fears may be run by sincere Christians, but it seems to me their message and strategy are very much at odds with the heart of the Gospel proclamation itself.

Christ is risen. Be not afraid.

Coincidence?

This year the first Sunday of Lent and the beginning of Daylight Savings Time are on Lord's Day March 9.

Lego clarifies

Turns out the penguin and polar bear got to know one another at a zoo. Thanks, Lego!

The friendship that dare not speak its name

As I've written elsewhere, Advent is, at least for me, the hap-happiest time of the year. The lights go up, the Christmas songs start playing, and I find myself weeping like a schoolgirl while listening to the Lake Woebegon monologue. However, there is a melancholy undercurrent for me because of another theme which becomes ubiquitous this time of year.

I speak, of course, of the polar bear and penguin, who are seen sledding, skating, sharing a caffeinated corn syrup-based beverage, and just generally frolicking together on everything from advertisements to throw pillows this time of year. Their friendship is so open, so mutually supportive, and so freely and graciously given it puts me in mind of Isaiah 11:1-10, the text I preached the second Sunday in Advent. As the lion lies down with the lamb, so the polar bear with the penguin. It's nearly eschatological in its beauty.

Except that it can't happen because polar bears and penguins live, literally, at the opposite ends of the earth (polar bears on the North Pole ice cap and penguins around the South Pole on Antarctica and South America). Leave it to Coca-Cola to come up with ad campaign even less likely than persons of every race and ethnicity joining hands and singing in harmony whilst buying one another a caffeinated corn syrup-based carbonated beverage.

I guess it really is eschatological.

Happy holidays!

I occasionally use Mrs. Curmudgeon's Facebook account to spy on congregants and others, and was not too surprised at the beginning of December to see several posts announcing a stand against the greeting "Happy holidays!" in order to wage a counter-offensive in the alleged war on Christmas. However, I was also pleased to see this decision tree also making its rounds on The Facebook:

That really says it all, but since I'm a pastor and saying more than is absolutely necessary is an occupational hazard, I will venture a few more observations on the issue.

First, let us observe that, since "X" has always been an abbreviation for the Greek word "Xristos," translated as "Christ" in English, those who use "Xmas" are not taking Christ out of Christmas, but are doing the best they can under space constraints. Relax.

Second, "Happy holidays" is a relatively polite greeting in a pluralistic society in which various faith communities celebrate different holy days during this time of year. Last time I checked, Jesus allows Christians to behave relatively politely.

Furthermore, even if ours was not a relatively pluralistic society but were instead monolithically and universally Christian, the Church calendar is just packed with holidays. Not only do we have the entire season of Advent, but there's Christmas Day, the twelve days of Christmastide, and Epiphany, on top of which many also mark the New Year with worship services. Of all people, Christians have the most reason to wish each other "Happy holidays!"

My middle sister, whose taste in popular music is almost as impeccable as mine, a few years ago gifted the family with a Christmas playlist which concluded with Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters singing a song called "Happy Holidays." Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. If that's not the apogee of American Christian civil religion, I don't know what is.

Now that we've got that settled, let's get down to putting the X back in X-Mas!

Daylight Stupid Time

The secular humanist conspiracy to keep Christians out of Sunday worship was successful in the case of at least one family in our congregation this year. (When people miss worship, the pastor always charitably assumes sudden and grave illness.) As much as I hate shilling for the federal government, I try to make sure a warning appears in the bulletin the week prior to the initiation of Daylight Satan Time, but it caught me by surprise this year; I only learned the dread tidings on Wednesday of last week.

In light of my omission, I was sent this hymn, which I will in turn recommend to the OPC's Psalter-Hymnal committee:

Baptism books

2013 started off well for me, as I got to perform my first baptism of the year on Epiphany, which had the good manners to fall on a Lord's Day this time through the liturgical calendar. This gave me the opportunity to cram in two sacraments after the sermon, which in turn meant I got to go from Epiphany to Pentecost to the new heavens and earth within about 45 minutes, and pulled off the whole liturgy in just 90 minutes. A pretty decent land speed, if I say so myself.

For a number of years now, I've made a practice of gifting baptizands with an age-appropriate book. For infants (as this last one was), I've been giving copies of Water, Come Down! by Walter Wangerin. It anthropomorphizes elements of the creation to teach the child about the significance of his or her baptism. Read repeatedly (as any children's book must be), it will help said child interpret Biblical imagery and appropriate her or his identity as a child of God.

I also pay a home visit during the week before the baptism. For a first child, this gives me the opportunity to instruct the new parents on the reasons we baptize our children. (Sadly, those who grew up in presbyterian or reformed homes are often the shakiest on these.) For subsequent children, it's a chance to help the older sibling(s) view the upcoming celebration less as yet another occasion on which s/he will be ignored in favor of this new interloper and more as the first time to really improve on one's own baptism. To that end, the board book Things I See at Baptism by Julie Stigmeyer explains the sacrament by emphasizing important key words and by emphasizing baptism as the entry point into Church membership. I usually ask the parents to read it with their child(ren) every day before the baptism.

My discerning readers will have already searched Amazon for these titles and noticed they're both written by Lutherans, for Lutherans. Given our robust doctrines of covenant and, therefore, infant baptism, one would think presbyterians would have produced any number of children's books on baptism. One would think; however, after much searching, I must tell one that one is incorrect.

I trust someone in my vast international readership will soon correct this grievous oversight.

Fatherhood after Christmas

Don't just take me at my word when I say this essay by Nicholas Frankovich is lovely: go read it.

With Epiphany nigh

No doubt because Epiphany is nigh, the OPC website this week features an attempt to explain the Star of Bethlehem as a supernatural celestial phenomenon. As I've preached on Matthew 2:1-12 several times without ever feeling any concern over just what was going on in the skies two thousand years ago, I can't fault this explanation. However, I prefer one offered by Allen P. Ross, whose lecture "Matthew and the Magi" was recently featured on the Beeson Divinity School podcast. Ross suggests the "star" may have in fact been the divine Glory-Cloud which led Israel through the Exodus wilderness and was associated with Solomon's Temple. As Matthew is rather vague on the details, one can't say for sure, but that fact has never stopped scholarly speculation in the past.

Ross also argues that the magi probably visited Jesus in Bethlehem shortly after his birth, defending the popular impression  they arrived on January 6, just after the twelfth day of Christmas but still in time to appear in manger scenes atop mantels and pianos everywhere. I have a curmudgeonly appreciation for this contrarian position, but was disappointed at the cheap shots Ross takes at "We Three Kings of Orient Are." He's not content to observe the indeterminate number of magi in Matthew's account, but seems to think we believe each magus explained the symbolical meaning of his gift as he presented it. No one thinks they did, and as a professional exegete, I must say the interpreations offered in the classic Christmas hymn are as good as any I've ever found in any commentary. Our ignorance of the number of wise men aside, the ommission of "We Three Kings" from either edition of the Trinity Hymnal is a great tragedy. Much better, I think, to sing at Epiphany and at other times,

Glorious now behold Him arise,
King and God and Sacrifice.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Sounds through the earth and skies.

Glad tidings of great joy

Just under the wire, I've found a Christmas album for 2012: John Roderick and Jonathan Coulton's One Christmas at a Time, available for immediate download through the wonders of the webernet. Why it's worth your while: the long needed, but not until now composed, song about "The Week Between" Christmas and New Year, when the spirit careens between ennui and despair.

And on that note, merry Christmas!