[Mcgregorpage] McGregorPage 536, Christmas 1, Dec. 31, 2006

[rmcgregoralbq at aol.com]

Christmas 1, December 31, 2006

I Samuel 2:18-20,26
Psalm 148
Colossians 3:12-17
Luke 2:41-52

Cross Purposes

How children grow up.  It seems only yesterday he was a baby in the 
manger.  He takes after his father.  But, he is trying his best to be a 
human being.  Strange, God trying to become a human being while human 
beings try to become God.  We are like ships passing in the night.  
“Hey!  Wasn’t that God we just passed going the other way?”  Wouldn’t 
it be a shock to get to heaven, and God wasn’t there; look back, and 
he’s in Calcutta.  “Wait!  We could have been in Calcutta.”  Indeed.  
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God 
is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be 
his peoples, and God himself will be with them...’” (Revelation 21:3)

I’ve heard people say as a gesture of good will toward people of other 
denominations or other religions, “We are all trying to get the same 
place.”  Yes, like third graders in the school cafeteria line, pushing 
and shoving and elbowing the next person out of line; but God isn’t 
trying to get to that place, so we aren’t all trying to get to the same 
place.  God is trying to get here.

If God were in Jesus reconciling the world to himself as Paul says, (2 
Corinthians 5) then God wanted to be in Jesus, wanted to be in dialog 
with the teachers in the temple, wanted to be subject to Mary and 
Joseph and live in Nazareth.  That is where God wanted to be, was 
pleased to be.  God climbs the social ladder down; we climb it up. What 
is the Gospel of God but that up is down?  God comes down. God wants to 
come down.  Down is up to God.   “He sat down, called the twelve, and 
said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and 
servant of all’."  (Mark 9:35)  Christians might be accused of not 
knowing which way is up, but not often.  The Latter Day Saints always 
know which way is up, but on a spinning, wobbling circling planet, is 
up even a meaningful direction?

Yuri Gagarin sat on his little perch in space and said with 
self-satisfaction that he didn’t see God anywhere up there, but Tellard 
de Chardin looked for God in a more likely place, the humble space 
between nucleus and circling electrons, God like the little Dutch boy 
with his finger in the dike, serving the universe by holding it 
together with love.

Now, Hannah knew God when up was up.  She gave up her first born son 
and saw him before the altar at about the same age as Jesus was when 
Mary and Joseph found him in the Temple.  Hannah gives her son to God.  
God turns around and gives God’s son to us.  It looks to me as if God 
wants to be friends right here, right now.

So, are we, God and us, just at cross purposes, or is that the way it 
supposed to be, God wanting down and people wanting up?  Is it possible 
that God gets to be human and humans get to be God in the context of 
the Kingdom of God -- not “you will be like God knowing good and evil” 
as the serpent put it, but “As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, 
clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and 
patience.” as Paul put it?  We really do get to be God, properly 
understood, that is.  We get to be holy.

May these thoughts strengthen you.

An Open Letter to Fellow Pastors
>From Roland McGregor, United Methodist Pastor
 (an e-mail service)

[See Web Page address below for a Children’s Message coordinated with 
these lections.]

http://www.webspawner.com/users/ChildPage/

Multiple Sermon Starter Essays are available at
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      --Copyright 2006, Roland McGregor, all rights reserved—
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