Come to the Manger Student Book: Scriptures for the Church Seasons: Advent 2008 - Softcover

Kaylor, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0687647118 ISBN 13: 9780687647118

Publisher: Abingdon Pr, 2008

Synopsis

Lectionary-based; five sessions; one session for each Sunday of Advent, plus readings for Christmas Day.

Advent 2008
Come to the Manger

An Advent Study Based on the Revised Common Lectionary

Robert Kaylor

As Bob Kaylor writes in his introduction to this Advent study, “There’s no greater birth story in the world than the one we celebrate on Christmas. It carries with it all the elements of a great story: anticipation, conflict, hope, heroes and villains, and a surprise ending.” He invites readers to feel the joy and the pain with every verse from the prophets to the Gospels. He reminds us that Advent is a great time for us to gather and listen to those stories again, with “fresh ears and with eyes wide open for new possibilities.” Through the study of the Revised Common Lectionary texts, Kaylor invites us to see God’s face, to find our way to the manger, to identify a vision for vocation, to build God’s house, and to behold Jesus.

A five-session leader’s guide is available for use in Sunday school classes or other small groups.

Bob Kaylor is pastor of Park City Community United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah, and is a clergy member of the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference. A 1995 graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary, Bob is also the Senior Writer for the preaching journal Homiletics. Bob is married to Jennifer and they have two children, Hannah and Rob. Bob enjoys reading history, watching baseball, mountain biking, and playing the drums.

Abingdon Press

General Interest/Seasonal/Advent

ISBN

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Come to the Manger Student

By Robert Kaylor

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2008 The United Methodist Publishing House
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-687-64711-8

Chapter One

Seeing God's Face

Scriptures for Advent: The First Sunday Isaiah 64:1-9 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 Mark 13:24-37

We have had quite a baby boom atour church recently, with several families having newborns within the span of a couple of months. Besides filling up the nursery on Sunday mornings, one of the other benefits for the church and for me as a pastor is that I have the great privilege of bringing these little ones into the church community through the sacrament of baptism. That is always a special occasion—moms and dads beaming, grandparents snapping pictures, the congregation joyously responding with their commitment to support the child and her family as she grows to know God's grace for herself.

What is most fascinating to me, though, is that moment when I take the child from her mother's arms and hold her. No matter how agreeable the child is, there is a momentary panic in her eyes when she cannot see mom's face. Sometimes there is a whimper, sometimes a full-out wail; but most often the child quickly moves her focus to the face of the one who is now holding her. They seem to reach out instinctively to touch that new face in front of them. In my case, that face has a goatee ripe for grabbing and a microphone just begging to be pulled off.

Recent studies have shown that babies may be better at face recognition than adults. In fact, humans start out with the ability to recognize and remember a wide range of faces even among races or species different from our own. Somehow, though, as we grow, we begin to lose our ability to recognize faces. My theory is that it is because we can become too self-focused and busy to pay attention to those around us.

The Scriptures for this first Sunday in Advent are all about recapturing the ability to recognize faces, particularly the face of God revealed in Jesus Christ. When we come to the manger, we are doing nothing less than seeking the face of God—a face that the Scriptures say will one day be revealed in glory to the whole world.

REVEALING THE HIDDEN GOD ISAIAH 64:1-9

* * *

One of my all-time favorite movies is Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table gets a silly retelling in this goofy and sometimes irreverent spoof. I laugh out loud every time I watch it. In the midst of the movie's silliness, though, there is a scene that is unintentionally poignant.

As Arthur gathers his knights, he suddenly hears an angelic heavenly sound and looks up to see cartoon clouds parting to reveal a robed and bearded God wearing a crown and speaking in a thundering voice. If you were to ask a child (or even many adults) to draw a picture of what God might look like, the results would probably look a lot like the movie's version of God. After God tells Arthur to "stop groveling," God tells the king quite plainly that he is to set out on a quest to seek out the grail, the lost cup of Jesus from the Last Supper. Arthur replies that that sounds like a good idea, to which God thunders, "'Course it's a good idea!"

What strikes me about this scene is that the Python's parody of God is what a lot of people hope might be the reality. Wouldn't it be great, for example, if God would part the clouds and speak to us plainly, telling us what to do and what path we are to take with our lives? Some people I meet present this as a theological conundrum: If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent, why doesn't God just reveal himself to us and eliminate any doubt? Why all the secrecy?

The same question is asked by the writer of Isaiah, who entreats God to "tear open the heavens and come down" in an awesome display of power and might evident to all the nations (Isaiah 64:1-2). The writer saw God as living in the "holy and glorious habitation" of heaven but lamented that God seemed so distant, withholding God's "heart" and "compassion" from the writer and his people (63:15).

God had previously been present with his people in power, delivering them out of Egypt, leading them by a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire, revealing God's glory in giving the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, dwelling with Israel in the wilderness Tabernacle, inhabiting the Temple built by Solomon, going before Israel in battle, and doing more "awesome deeds" (64:3) that God's people had not expected. No one in history had ever heard of or seen a God so powerfully present and active on behalf of his people (verses 3-4). Now, though, as the people suffered from the sting of defeat and exile at the hand of the Babylonians, it seemed that God had closed up the clouds and turned off the fireworks on their behalf.

People want signs from God but tend to ignore them when they are present. Even while God was making the "mountains quake" at Sinai in Exodus 32, talking with Moses on the mountaintop, and giving him the Law, the people of Israel were at the bottom of the mountain complaining against God and Moses and crafting their own god in the form of a golden calf. No matter how spectacular the sign or evidence, humans are easily blinded to God's presence and power because of sin—the serious human drive for self-interest and self-indulgence. Sin has a way of blocking our view of God by putting up a mirror that causes us to fall in love with our own reflection.

Israel had continued that long history of neglecting God and going after other pagan gods; and for that, as the prophets had continually pointed out, there would be consequences. Exile was one of those consequences, but the greater problem was God's apparent retreat into hiding. The writer seems to have been conflicted about all this, even implying that God's hiding may have been the cause of Israel's sin in the first place (Isaiah 64:5). Did God hide from God's people because they had sinned, or had the people sinned because God had hidden from them?

The writer and his people felt the pain of God's absence. They had become unclean, and any "righteous deeds" they had done could not purify them. The filthy cloth here refers to a garment stained with menstrual blood, which was considered to be ritually unclean (Leviticus 15:19-24). Sin had caused the nation to dry up like a fallen leaf driven by the wind (Isaiah 64:6). No one prayed anymore or attempted to cling to God because God had "hidden [God's] face" from them and had given them over to the consequences of their sins (verse 7).

I once saw a quote—maybe it was on a bumper sticker—that went something like this: "If you feel distant from God, just ask yourself, 'Who moved?'" If God seems hidden to us, maybe it is because we have stopped looking for God in the midst of our daily lives. In the Scriptures, heaven is not a far away place "way beyond the blue" as the old song says; but rather it is God's realm, God's dwelling, and it is quite near to us. All we need to do is put down the mirror and open a window into the relationship God wants to share with us. Rather than a booming shout from the clouds, God more often is revealed in the "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12, King James Version). We can hear if we are focused enough to listen.

Advent reminds us, too, that if we want to see the face of the hidden God, we do not do so by looking up for a heavenly sound and light spectacular. Rather, we find it by looking into the dark recesses of a stable and into the eyes of a humble, helpless child.

"We are the clay," said the writer of Isaiah, and God is the potter (64:8). We must not give into the temptation of sin to make gods in our own image. Instead, we submit ourselves to the potter, who can mold us into his own spitting image.

When have you felt distant from God? What are some of the awesome deeds God has done in your life that you may not have recognized before as such? What sin do you need to confess in order to draw closer to God?

REVEALING THE LORD 1 CORINTHIANS 1:3-9

* * *

One of the most vivid memories of my childhood was the Saturday after Thanksgiving when my mother and grandmother would bundle my sisters and me into our snowsuits and drive into Pittsburgh for the annual holiday shopping trip. Even before the turkey hit the freezer on Thanksgiving Thursday, I started dreading this trip. The problem as I saw it through my ten-year-old eyes was that my mom's idea of Christmas shopping and mine were radically different. To me, spending a couple of hours in a toy store trying out all the new stuff would be time well-spent. After all, then I would know what I wanted Santa to put under the tree.

Mom's idea of shopping, though, was dragging us through as many large department stores as possible, having us try on all manner of clothing—usually consisting of polyester dress pants and shirts with lots of buttons. I would be so bored that Saturday that I would not notice Mom stuffing all those bags in the trunk of the car and that those same pants and shirts were the ones I opened quickly on Christmas morning before moving on to the good stuff—kind of like eating your vegetables before dessert.

Still, Mom always promised us that if we were good and kept moving our little feet from store to store, we would get to sit on Santa's lap at the end of the day and tell him that we did not want any more socks, thank you very much. That motorized fire truck I saw in the store window would do quite nicely. With visions of the jolly old elf dancing through my head, I trudged along the streets of the Steel City through the soot-covered snow with about as much determination as a boy can muster.

Looking back, I do not remember any of the toys that I asked for; but I do remember being fascinated by the city. The window displays were beautiful. The streetlights glowed in the fading afternoon light. People waited in large crowds to cross the street. Each department store piped Christmas music to speakers out on the street; and everywhere you could hear the sound of bells ringing, because on nearly every busy street corner and in front of Horne's, Gimbel's, Kauffman's, and all the other stores, a bundled person rang a big silver bell next to a red Salvation Army donation kettle. My mom could never pass one without dropping something in. We were a working-class family, but Mom knew that there were plenty of others out there who were less fortunate than we were and that we needed to help them. I remember thinking that it would be great to give them all those extra dress socks.

Christmas shopping nowadays is quite a different experience. It is easier to shop by pointing and clicking your computer mouse than it is to drive downtown. Even if you venture downtown, most of the old stores have moved out. Stores in malls start putting up their Christmas decorations before the Halloween displays are down, which dilutes the whole season.

I read somewhere recently that the Salvation Army has been hit hard by the decline in kettles and even more so by the lack of ringers. In Knoxville, Tennessee, for example, the Salvation Army had to pay out about $30,000 to hire people to man the few kettles that would be around town during the 2006 Christmas season. People need to hear those bells. The decrease in funding that this important charitable organization receives is alarming, but I think the greater problem is that in our culture the gap between rich and poor gets wider every day. People need to remember that while they are spending buckets of cash on Christmas, there are people down the street who do not know where their next meal is coming from. Those silver bells Bing Crosby used to sing about were not only a sure sign of "Christmas time in the city," they were also a ringing reminder to everyone that the season is supposed to be about giving more than receiving.

When I read Paul's greeting in his letter to the Corinthian church, what leaps out at me is his repeated references to "the Lord Jesus Christ." The name of Jesus is referenced eight times in the first nine verses of 1 Corinthians 1. To me, the name sounds like the repeated ringing of a bell reminding the Corinthian church to whom they belonged and to what mission they had been called.

At the time of Paul, Corinth was one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the Roman Empire. A Roman colony about 40 miles from Athens, Corinth sat on the narrow isthmus of the Peloponnese, which put the city in a strategic economic position. Ships wanting to avoid the stormy middle of the Mediterranean Sea would tack closer to the coast and dock on one side of the isthmus. From there, the ships were portaged a couple of miles overland, cargo and all, and launched safely on the other side.

The constant flow of sailors and travelers in and out of the city made some of the citizens wealthy. However, unlike the circumstances in other cities in the empire, this wealth was known for being devoid of culture. Unlike Athens, Corinth was not so much a center for learning and the arts as it was a place where one could engage in more worldly and pleasurable pursuits. With all the sailors coming through town, along with other people seeking their fortunes, and with the proliferation of a variety of pagan religions and fertility cults that practiced temple prostitution, Corinth developed a reputation as a morally lax city. The burgeoning wealth of the most prosperous citizens also resulted in the mistreatment of the poor, giving Corinth the distinction in the rest of the Roman world as a city that lacked compassion and grace.

Paul had arrived in Corinth sometime around the year A.D. 50 and established a church. The makeup of that church was mostly Gentile, which we can deduce by the number of Greek and Latin names Paul mentioned. Like the rest of Corinth, however, the church reflected the steep divide between the rich and the poor. The social divide was causing problems in the young church with the rich, who did not have to keep working hours, often arriving early at church dinners and eating all the choice food before the working-class members could get there (1 Corinthians 11:17-34). Also causing division in the church was the issue of spiritual gifts as some of the believers believed themselves to be superior in their giftedness (12:1–14:40). Paul clearly had his work cut out for him as he tried to bring together this divided church.

Using the standard conventions of ancient letter-writing, he began with thanksgiving for the believers. Paul's thankful words, however, are a kind of thesis statement for what he would address later in the letter. Paul reminded the Corinthians that God's grace had been given to them in Jesus Christ (1:4), that they had all been "enriched" in "speech and knowledge" (verse 5), and that they had all been "strengthened" and given spiritual gifts (verses 6-7). From the outset, Paul wanted them to realize that the cultural and economic divides that separated the classes in the city were not to be part of the church's life and fellowship.

Like a ringer on a busy street corner, Paul used the repeated name of Jesus as a clarion call and a reminder that everyone is equal in Christ, that everyone falls under the lordship of the true King of the world. Lord was a title usually reserved for Caesar, but Paul liberally applied it to Jesus, who will wield ultimate authority over the whole world. When the true Lord is revealed in the end, on the "day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (verse 8), everyone will be judged, not by their wealth and power but by their faithfulness to God and their care for others. The Christian life is not about status or about having more; it is all about Jesus.

Understanding that we are all under the lordship of Jesus Christ is probably the most important message we can remember during this season. We need to think about how much our spending, our attitudes, and our desires reflect the culture around us instead of reflecting the call of Christ. If the name of Jesus is not ringing in our ears as we approach the Advent season, perhaps we need to stop shopping and start listening for the bells. How we live our lives, how we approach those who are poor, and how we spend our money and our time are all reflections of who is the Lord of our lives. May the name of Jesus be in our ears, on our lips, and in our hearts as we await his coming.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Come to the Manger Studentby Robert Kaylor Copyright © 2008 by The United Methodist Publishing House. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Abingdon Pr
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0687647118
• ISBN 13: 9780687647118
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 54