Pastor Craig's ConSpiritu Blog

Christmas has not always been celebrated by the Church. For the first few centuries, the most important holy day was Easter. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ were the central events of salvation. The birth of Jesus was of little concern. Perhaps this is because only two of the Gospels even make mention of it. John and Mark take Jesus’ existence for granted. No need to talk about someone’s birth when it is self-evident that they must have been born. Of course, to some in the early Christian movement, it was not self-evident that Jesus was born. For some who believed that Jesus only appeared to be human, Jesus’ physical birth was a non-issue because it never happened. For some who believed that Jesus became the Son of God only when he was adopted by God at his baptism, his physical birth was like everyone else’s. No big story there. It isn’t until around the second century that we find records of any celebration of the birth of Jesus, and these assign it to Janua...

So here's a question to ponder: is Christmas all about happy feelings, joy and good will and peace and sugary sentiments? If you answered "yes," (and who doesn't hope for such things in life?), then read this part of the Christmas story: Matthew 2:13-23. Leonard Sweet has this to say about all this: This is the time of year when we need to be on high alert for cute. We love cuteness. This is a cute-driven culture. And this season of year turns everything it touches into glitz and cuteness. But the story of Jesus’ birth wasn’t cute. The Annunciation wasn’t cute. The virgin birth wasn’t cute. The Magnificat wasn’t cute. The little town of Bethlehem wasn’t cute. The killing of the innocents wasn’t cute. The nativity genealogy puts Mary in the lineage of Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheeba, and Ruth (yes, the one who snuck in to the rich Boaz’s tent at night while he was sleeping to seduce him). Jesus’ genealogy is not cute. Golgatha wasn’t cute. “Crux” in Latin me...

This next Sunday the choir at our church will be presenting a Cantata, "Go Tell It!" There will be one service at 10:00, so there will not be a sermon. So what follows are some interesting links to sites concerning the origins of Advent,Christmas and Epiphany. Obviously - or it should be obvious to anyone with a healthy sense of historical development and change - Christmas has not always been celebrated as we do now. Like most festivals and holidays, it has undergone a variety of changes  and it has an interesting evolutionary history. The Catholic Encyclopedia Online has an in-depth and rather scholarly look at the origins and early testimonies to the dating and celebration of Christ's birth.  Highlights: Possible connections with the roman festival of Sol Invictus (the Victorious Sun), various pagan accretions as Christianity spread throughout Europe and Asia, earliest mention of anything celebrating the birth of Jesus dates to about the year 200 C.E. Any website...

I love watching science fiction shows. Not the horror kind, but the kind that depict possible futures, exploring space, time travel and the like. Science fiction functions as a vehicle for people to think about alternative ways of living or ways to address current social problems. Some of my favorites have been TV series such as Star Trek (all the various series), Star Wars, Firefly, The Time Tunnel, Lost in Space, Aeon Flux, Solaris, among others. What especially appeals to me is how these shows imagine and then depict a different world from that which I experience everyday. Occasionally the things imagined come true in “real” life. Think of the communicators from Star Trek. They look and act just like today’s cell phones. I’m still waiting for the convenience of transporters to be able to teleport to work, rather than just telecommute via computers. The ancient prophets had a similar imagination. They imagined a world different from the one they knew at the present – their pres...

Here we are in Advent.  Waiting. Waiting. Getting ready. Getting prepared. Decorating the house maybe. Prettying things up, dusting off the ornaments, maybe. Thinking about Christmas gift shopping, maybe. Getting ready. But for what? The same old holiday as before? The same old Christmas tunes endlessly blaring at us when we're shopping? The same pressures each year at this time? Maybe it's time for a change, time to stop, really feel the chill in the air, really sense the darkness gathering and lapping at our feet like a rising tide. Time to allow ourselves to feel the unrest inside, acknowledge the cobwebs in the corners, the dirt behind our ears. Time to look at the tarnished silver in our drawers and tarnished gold in our hearts. The prophet Malachi is just the person for such a time. In chapter 3:1-4 , he talks about one who will come to help us clean up our act. Or should I say "acts?" For this one will come to help us individually and collectivel...

It was the middle of the Thirty Years War and the people in the German province of Saxony had felt the brunt of invasions, quartering soldiers in their homes, having their lands and crops and animals seized. Martin Rinkart was a pastor serving the church in Eilenb urg at the time, and carried his church through the whole war. In the midst of the war, a severe plague broke out in Northern Europe in 1637, and hit Eilenburg especially hard. 8000 persons died in this year alone, and Rinkart buried some 4500 that year, including his own wife.  There was something about Rinkart's deep faith that carried him through this time. Other clergymen fled the town for safer locations, and some succumbed to the plague. But in it all, Rinkart carried on, and persevered to write one of the most beloved of hymns in the German language, "Nun danket alle Gott." It is translated in English as "Now thank we all our God." I used to think this hymn was another one of those insipid h...

This Sunday is the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Therefore it is an appropriate time to reflect upon the act of giving thanks, of expressing our gratitude. This year for Thanksgiving I will gather with my family at my parent's home. Most of my brothers will be there with their families. One of my brothers will be there without someone very dear to him: his wife who died two years ago. Whenever we have gathered, we always took for granted that everyone would be there. The kids would be a little older, and there would always be the latest exploits of our children to share. But the death of my sister-in-law came way too soon, at way-too-young an age. So when I look around the family, I don't take it quite for granted anymore. The blessings that are there are not necessarily a given.  How many things in our life do we take for granted? How many things do we fail to give thanks for? How many times do we receive a gift and forget to express our gratitude? I know that I have do...

This next Sunday at our church is what we call Consecration Sunday. It is sort of like what New Year's Day is all about: Looking back and looking ahead. It's like the old Greek god Janus , who had a face that looked forward and a face that looked backwards. An appropriate god to provide the name for the month of January. But this isn't specifically about a new year, although in a sense it is. In agricultural communities, the harvest is pretty much past, crops are in storage or have been sold. There is a time of settling accounts and seeing how things turned out. Then comes the time of planning for next year. What should be planted? What plans should we make? The same is true of churches, as well as our personal lives. On Consecration Sunday, we look both forward and backward. We look backward and recall all that God has blessed us with. We give thanks for these blessings and then reflect upon how we might pass those blessings on to others. A blessing hoarded is a bles...

In his sermon entitled "The Use of Money, " John Wesley summarizes his advice on the scriptural and spiritual use of money to these three admonitions:  Gain all you can Save all you can Give all you can. His summary expands upon this a bit in this way: " Gain all you can, without hurting either yourself or your neighbour, in soul or body, by applying hereto with unintermitted diligence, and with all the understanding which God has given you; -- save all you can, by cutting off every expense which serves only to indulge foolish desire; to gratify either the desire of flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life; waste nothing, living or dying, on sin or folly, whether for yourself or your children; -- and then, give all you can, or, in other words, give all you have to God." In my last post, I intimated that Wesley might have a few things to say to those persons in the financial world who have benefitted personally from practices that have resulted in l...

The Stewardship sermon this week is ""All You Can: Stewardship in a Wesleyan Mode." "Wesley" as in John Wesley, the founder of the church revival movement in England that came to be known as Methodism. This week I will look at some of the things Wesley had to say about stewardship and giving. Here are some places to begin our exploration: The scripture is: Luke 16:1-12   John Wesley's Sermon, "The Use of Money" About John and Charles Wesley and the time in which they lived and worked. "Our Founder," John Wesley Tomorrow: Looking at Wesley's sermon. What might Wesley say to the financial and economic mess we are in now? Pastor Craig

Well, it's been a long week. It all began with a fire in our chapel following the 11:00 service. Only three of us were left in the church when we heard the smoke detector's shrill beeping. Our lay leader and his wife discovered the fire in the chapel, and we immediately shut all doors and called 911. We even made the news . Damage assessment is still underway, as well as clean-up.  The interesting thing in all of this is that I am in the midst of a sermon series on Stewardship. Our congregation is now faced with the opportunity of redesigning a new chapel that will be used by the generations that succeed us. Stewardship relates not only to what we do with what has been given us, but also with what we are passing on to those who will follow us. There was a poem written by Rebecca Parker, the president of Starr King School for the Ministry that I read in last Sunday's sermon that I share here now: Your gifts  whatever you discover them to be  can be used ...

So here are some things to ponder: How might the Ferengi from Star Trek , Yard Sales, Moses, Andor Foldes and a kiss help us to understand stewardship? Or here's another question: have you ever met a person who has never had a belly button? I knew of a woman once who had to have hers removed because of an infection. She was very self-conscious about it and never wore a swimming suit in public. But outside of that, belly buttons are ubiquitous. What do our belly buttons tell us about life? Just this: that we are not self-existent. We do not create ourselves. We owe our very existence to a billion forces and One Force beyond ourselves. So considering that, look at the following picture and describe what is theologically incorrect (besides the obvious fact that God is depicted as a big old dude with a long beard). Correct answers will be treated to a cup of coffee or comparable beverage of your choice at any of our fine establishments in Pocatello. Hope to see you in church...

This week begins a series of sermons focusing upon stewardship. I understand stewardship to be at the center of the Christian life and walk, simply because at its heart, stewardship is all about what we do with what we are given . In a nutshell, stewardship: recognizes our full dependence upon God for our existence reminds us that we are not self-made beings but are creatures of a Creator readjusts our thinking and acting accordingly reintegrates our lifestyles with our deepest beliefs and commitments in life. In his article, "The Attributes of a Biblically Generous Church,"  Michael Reeves refers to stewardship as involving our whole life. It's not just about money, but about what we do with our time, our gifts and talents, how we direct our prayers and thoughts, how we treat our neighbors and the natural world as well. At the core is the recognition of life - all of life - as a gift. In the Greek origins of the New Testament, one of the words for "gift"...

I extend a special welcome to all who are just now logging on to this new blogspot. Here is the drill: I will use this blog to share comments, thoughts and research for the coming Sunday's sermon. Each week there will be a new series of blogs. I encourage you to look up the scriptures, think about the subject, and send in your questions and perhaps a suggested story or poem or website or piece of info of your own. Then come to worship at either the 8:30 or 11:00 service at the First United Methodist Church in Pocatello, Idaho and see what emerges out of our blogging. I'll be back! Pastor Craig