Grab a Cheeseburger at Wendy's!

Text:  Galatians 4:4-7

Theme:  “Grab A Cheeseburger at Wendy’s”

1^st Sunday After Christmas

Dec. 28, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.[a] 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba,[b] Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

Here we are on day four of the twelve days of Christmas!  According to the song, this is the day when the “true love” gave “four calling birds” to his/or her loved one.  A quick Wikipedia review of “calling birds” reveals that they are perching birds as well; they are also called “song birds”.  For twelve years, Dr. Jeff Snider, our director of music, has been at his “perch”, so to speak, serving as a “song bird” for us.  We thank him for his service.  All of this ties together; it’s a beautiful thing.

Day two of the twelve days of Christmas had many Christians remembering St. Stephen, a martyr and deacon whose story is given early on in the book of Acts.  A deacon is one called to serve the poor and needy.  The occasion gave way to a traditional carol, “Good King Wenceslas”:

Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen

When the snow lay round about – deep and crisp and even.

Brightly shone the moon that night,

Though the frost was cruel,

When a poor man came in sight gathering winter fuel.

King Wenceslas and his page, as the lyrics go on, head out into the raging winter night and bring food and warmth to the poor man – like Deacon Stephen served the poor.  It ends like this – with something of a moral:

Therefore, Christian men, be sure – wealth or rank possessing:

He who now shalt bless the poor

Shall yourselves find blessing!

As I said, it all ties together.

Yesterday, day three of the twelve days, gave us The Feast of St. John the Evangelist.  John was the brother of James, one of the “Sons of Zebedee”.  Together, they were two of Jesus’ disciples during His earthly ministry.  It was the elderly John, exiled to the island of Patmos, who gave us the Book of Revelation.  Not only that, the prologue to the Gospel that bears his name declares:  “In the beginning was the Word.  And the Word was with God.  And the Word was God.”  That’s John 1:1 and following. 

Religious and philosophical thought, at when that was written, had no real problems with any of that language.  The issue came a few verses down the line where, in verse 14, we read:  “And the Word became flesh and dwelled (“tented” or “tabernacle’d”) among us.”  With that, St. John, and the rest of Christianity with him, bid farewell to a big chunk of philosophy.  The philosophers thought that every one had a spark of God within them.  Only upon death would the spark be released and then return to the celestial fire.  Thus, the problem with us is that we have a body that traps us.  The problem is that we are flesh and blood.  The “finite (the body) is not capable of the infinite (the divine).”

But if we think like St. John, flesh and blood present no problem.  Flesh and blood are good. God said so at creation.   After all, the Word – the divine logos – was pleased to dwell within flesh and blood.  “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  So the problem with us is not that we are trapped in a human body.  It’s that we’re trapped in human sin.  The only thing that truly sets us free from this is the unmerited grace and truth of God.  And John said that the Word made flesh was “full of grace and truth.”  It all ties together.

All of that brings us to today, the 4^th day of Christmas, The Feast of the Holy Innocents.  The magi had come from the east seeking the “One who was born King of the Jews.”  They went to King Herod to find out where he would be born.  Herod, paranoid in the extreme, consults his court theologians and finds, through the Scripture, that the King would be born in Bethlehem.  His paranoia fuels a decree that infant children, two years old and younger, would be slaughtered in Bethlehem.  It was genocide on a small scale. 

Even amid the joys of hearth and home and as we bask in the kindliness of Christmas, we are reminded, at the Feasts of Stephen and the Holy Innocents, what kind of world we live in still – a world where, for example, one hundred forty one children are slaughtered by terrorists in Pakistan.  It’s a world where parents still, in so many words, sing with the “Coventry Carol”:

That woe is me, poor child, for thee

And ever mourn and may

For thy parting neither say nor sing,

"Bye bye, lully, lullay.

The thing that can get the attention of the confirmed, modern skeptic is not that Christianity is a list of fundamentals, and it certainly isn’t because it is some kind of pageant you sell tickets for at Christmastime.  Neither is Christianity yet another religious or philosophical system of thought. 

Christianity is REAL; that’s what it is.   It’s not “pie in the sky” and “sweet bye and bye”.  It deals with real people and real events – good, bad, and ugly.  It deals with real flesh and blood!  And it has the audacity to say, despite tons of evidence that appears contrary, that God is not dead.  God is alive.  God is in charge.  And, best of all, God is gracious. 

In today’s New Testament reading from Galatians – a book which has been dubbed “the ‘magna carte’ of Christian liberty, the Apostle Paul, who once had watched the stoning of St. Stephen, described us as adopted children of God.  That’s what Christmas grace and truth does:  it adopts us into God’s family.

All out of the blue, it popped into my head what to do to honor this good Word from God in the book of Galatians.  I’m going to go grab a cheeseburger at Wendy’s – not McDonalds, not Burger King, not Fuddruckers, but Wendy’s!  Why Wendy’s?  Because the late Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s was an adopted child, and his foundation encouraged adoption.  I, too, am an adopted child.  I was only six weeks old.  My parents did not bring me home from the hospital on December 21, 1961.   I came from Lutheran Family Service of Nebraska. 

That adoption, as wonderful as it was and is (for me and my parents), is used here only to illustrate something far grander:  your adoption as a child of God. 

Want to know the “true meaning” of Christmas?  There are many true meanings, and here’s one of them straight from out text:  you are an adopted child of God.  People can say what they will about you – and they will.  My encouragement, then, is to not sweat that.  What ultimately matters is what God says about you: you are God’s adopted child.

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.[a] 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba,[b] Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

Sin will try to enslave you.  The media and advertisers will try to enslave you.  Horrific news accounts will try to enslave you.  Debt will try to enslave you.  Politics will enslave you.  Traffic will enslave you.  Depression will try to enslave you.  Sickness and death will enslave you.  All will try to enslave you, isolate you, diminish you, write you out of the will, end you.  And that’s real.

But stronger than reality as we know it are the facts from the Word made flesh.  We are not slaves.  We are heirs written IN to God’s will.   We are God’s adopted children.  As the old year gives say to the new, we don’t know what the future holds.  But we know who holds the future:  the Word made flesh -- full of grace and truth. 

Happy 4^th day of Christmas!  You’ve got eight more to go, Lord willing, before the tree comes down!  But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.  A child of God rejoices in each day as the gift that it is – a gift that may include a trip to Wendy’s to grab a cheeseburger!

Amen.

Little Jesus, Wast Thou Shy?

Text:  Luke 2:1-20

Theme:  “Little Jesus, Wast Thou Shy?”

Feast of the Nativity

Christmas Eve

Dec. 24, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while[a] Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

A very merry Christmas to each of you!  It is, itself, a gift to share the feast of the nativity of our Lord with one another. 

In 1887, a magazine editor in London, England received a package.  It contained an essay and a collection of poems.  The author, in a note to the editor, wanted the contents to be inspected.  He actually thought they were worthless and even included a return envelope for the presumed rejection letter.  The author had tried, three times, to become a medical doctor like his father, but he failed.  He decided to become a writer, but somewhere along the way he became addicted to opium.

Among his submissions was a short poem entitled “Little Jesus”.  Herewith a short excerpt:

Little Jesus, was Thou shy

Once, and just as small as I?

And what did it feel like to be

Out of heaven, and just like me?

Didst Thou sometimes think of there,

And ask where all the angels were?

I should think that I would cry

For my house all made of sky… .

And Thou know’st I cannot pray

To Thee in my father’s way –

When Thou was so little, say,

Couldn’t Thou talk Thy Father’s way?—

So, as a little child, come down

And hear a child’s tongue like Thy own;

Take me by the hand and walk,

And listen to my baby-talk.

To Thy Father show my prayer

(He will look, Thou art so fair),

And say, “O Father; I Thy Son,

Bring the prayer of a little one.”

And He will smile, that childrens’ tongue

Hast not changed since Thou was young!

Tonight, this holy night, we are young at heart; we are children.  The Scriptures declare that “A little child shall lead them.”  Christ Himself declared:  “He who does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall not enter in to it.”  It’s hard to think of a better night to receive that kingdom. 

Little children – be they shy or gregarious – live only by what they are given.  That is, they live by faith.  When the very grown-up Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, heard from an angel that his wife, Elizabeth, would give to the birth to the forerunner of Christ, John the Baptist, he asked:  “How will I know?”  He wasn’t sure.  When Mary, the mother of our Lord, was told that she would give birth to the Son of the most high God, she asked:  “How can this be?”  She did not doubt; she trusted what the angel said.  She was only curious about the specifics.

We gather tonight to hear again the herald angel’s message:  “Unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.”  We greet the news a little bit like Zechariah and a little bit like Mary.  We welcome it with doubt and faith.  There is doubt:  Is it really true?  It happened so long ago – if it even happened at all.  And there is faith:  “Lord, I celebrate your birth; I just wish I knew how it all will work out for me.”

Is it not best to receive Christmas for all the gift that it is – in the Gospel you have heard and in the feast you are about to partake of – like a child, as a little one who lives only by what is given, as a youngster with awe and wonder in the eyes? It is the joy and challenge of this feast of the nativity:  to marvel that God became a human being, to let your spirit engage in the playfulness of a child.

Think of it:  to be excited, from the tip of your toes to the crown of your head, that God became a child!  And, please God, let us stick with this truth whatever our actual age may be.  God became human.  That means the almighty knows what it’s like to be one of us – in our highest joys and our deepest sorrows, in our lives and in our death.

No need, tonight, to become too adult-like – adult in the sense of glorifying human reason.  Reason tries to find god or gods in all kinds of places – just not down in a lowly manger bed.  But Martin Luther, with the faith of a child declared, “Bend yourself down to this place.  There you will find that boy given for you who is your Creator lying in a manger.  I will stay with that boy as he sucks, is washed, and dies…There is no joy but in this boy.  Take him away and you face the Majesty that terrifies.  I know of no God but this one in the manger.”

Little Jesus, was Thou shy

Once and just so small as I?

Away in a manger – no crib for a bed,

The little Lord Jesus lay down His sweet head.

The stars in the sky looked down where He lay,

The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.

Be near me, Lord Jesus.

I ask Thee to stay close by me forever,

And love me I pray.

Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care,

And take us to heaven to live with Thee there.

And God will smile that our childrens’ tongues have not changed since Christ was young.

Merry Christmas!

Amen.

John Calvin on "The Gospel" !!!

Dear Friends:

Moments from now (11:00 am), The Festival of Carols will begin at my place of employ.  Based on the liturgy used at King's College in Cambridge, England, it brings the basic Christmas teachings of the Scripture to the congregation, and it's interspersed with the best-loved hymns and carols of the season!

Whether you are with us in person or not, I hope you have time this Christmastide -- personally and corporately -- to meditate upon the incarnation of the Almighty and on what this Immanuel ("God with us") has accomplished.

John Calvin, that great reformer in the Presbyterian tradition, had much to say about the Gospel of Son of God born that first Christmas.  Herewith a portion of a preface he wrote to a translation of the New Testament:

Without the gospel everything is useless and vain;  without the gospel we are not Christians; without the gospel all riches is poverty, all wisdom, folly before God; strength is weakness, and all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God.

But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, fellow townsmen with the saints, citizens of the Kingdom of heaven, heirs of God with Jesus Christ, by whom the poor are made rich, the weak strong, the fools wise, the sinners justified, the desolate comforted, the doubting sure, and slaves free.  It is the power of salvation of all those who believe. 

It follows that every good things we could think or desire is to be found in this same Jesus Christ alone.  For, he was sold to buy us back; captive, to deliver us; condemned, to absolve us;  he was made a curse for our blessing, sin offering for our righteousness; marred that we may be made fair; he died for our life; so that by him fury is made gentle, wrath appeased, darkness turned into light, fear reassured, despisal despised, debt cancelled, labor lightened, sadness made merry, misfortune made fortunate, difficulty easy, disorder ordered, division united, ignominy ennobled, rebellion subject, intimidation intimidated, ambush uncovered assaults assailed, force forced back, combat combated, war warred against, vengeance avenged, torment tormented, damnation damned...death dead, mortality made immortal.

And we are comforted in tribulation,  joyful in sorrow, abounding in poverty, warmed in our nakedness, patient amongst evils, living in death.

This is what we should in short seek in the whole of Scripture:  truly to know Jesus Christ, and the infinite riches that are comprised in him and are offered to us by him from God the Father.

Christmas Eve will include dinner (in Erwin Hall) at 6:00 pm.  The Candlelight Communion will follow at 7:30pm.  YOU AND YOURS are invited to both.  If you need any information, call the First Presbyterian Church office at 940-387-3894.

Your Friend,

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

When Purple Gives Way to Pink...

Text:  Luke 1:46b-55

Theme:  “Purple Gives Way to Pink”

3^rd Sunday of Advent

December 14, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

46 And Mary said:

“My soul magnifies the Lord

47

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

48

for he has been mindful

of the humble state of his servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

49

for the Mighty One has done great things for me—

holy is his name.

50

His mercy extends to those who fear him,

from generation to generation.

51

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

52

He has brought down rulers from their thrones

but has lifted up the humble.

53

He has filled the hungry with good things

but has sent the rich away empty.

54

He has helped his servant Israel,

remembering to be merciful

55

to Abraham and his descendants forever,

just as he promised our ancestors.”

Purple gives way to pink, to begin with, on our Advent Wreath.  Thanks to Alan and Melissa who lit the candles this week and to everyone who has participated so far.  Today we fired up the pink candle.  Candle one, lit on the first Sunday of Advent, is purple.  Candle two, lit on the second Sunday of Advent, is purple.  Candle three, lit today, is pink.  Next week, it’s purple again, and then it’s Christmas and the Christ candle! 

Why a pink candle on Advent III?  Wouldn’t another purple one be fine?  Well, it’s the lectionary’s fault.  Pink, in our culture, is popularly thought of in conjunction with breast cancer awareness and support.  This is all well and good.  But traditionally, Pink was associated with joy, and the Scriptures appointed for our hearing today sound a note of great joy.  In contrast, the purple symbolizes royalty (as in, a King is about to be born), but it also denotes penitence.  And here we are reminded that the season of Advent was originally a penitential season -- a time of preparation that isn’t limited to trimming trees and hanging lights while the sound of carolers filling the night.  We prepare by taking a look inward to see if our hearts and minds are ready for the good news that is at the heart of Christmas.  Stated differently, Advent is a time – or should be a time – of spiritual housecleaning.  Instead of looking for deals online, we look for everything – inline, if you will – that we inadvertently use to keep Christ out of our lives.  We repent of that; we change our mind about that; we sweep that away, and we focus, once more, on the joy of knowing that Child of Bethlehem’s manger. 

Today’s Gospel is actually not the Magnificat of Mary, the mother of the Lord, that I just read.  A passage from John’s Gospel, featuring John the Baptist, is appointed for today.  But the Magnificat is given as an “alternate reading”.  Without the alternate, we’d get two weeks in a row of John the Baptist and only one week of the Mother Mary – and that sounds rather sexist.    But this year, I’m going with two weeks of the Mother Mary. 

We Protestant Christians tend to not pay a whole lot of attention to the Mother Mary.  Our Roman Catholic friends, though, are a different story.  Devotion to Mary (or Marian piety, if you will) is strong.  There are even extra-biblical teachings – the immaculate conception and the blessed assumption of Mary – that have become feast days. 

For us, Mary is that lovely figure of the manger scene.  There she is, kneeling down and wrapped in colored robes, looking on lovingly at the child in the manger.  That’s so nice, so sentimental.

Then she sort of disappears from the radar screen.  Later on, she does accompany the grown-up Jesus to a wedding at Cana.  In addition to that, she was there when her son was violently executed.  She saw it all; she watched the lifeblood drain out of Him.  What’s it like for a mother to lose a child?

Most scholars think that Mary was a teenager when the Angel Gabriel announced to her that the Holy Spirit would overshadow and she would give birth to a child.  She was not married at the time.  Thus, it was an unwed pregnancy, and there was, of course, a stigma attached to that.  There were stigmas then as there are various and sundry stigmas now.  What does it feel like to be stigmatized for any reason?

An un-named donor has provided Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital here in Denton with a wonderful piece of technology.  Designed for what is called the “Nicu” – or neo-natal intensive care unit, the device will enable parents and loved ones to look upon their newborn child in intensive care.  Although the child, for health reasons, will be in isolation from any visitors, he or she will still be able to hear the voice of mom or dad and see his or her picture on a screen.

For Mary, there was no modern technology or convenience.  If Jesus was a preemie, there was no Nicu unit for him and no warm bassinet – with monitors and all – in the maternity ward.  There was no room for Him.  There was no such thing as a hospital as we know it.  There was an inn there in Bethlehem, but it had no vacancy.  So Mother Mary would have to stick it out in the elements.  The child was laid in a manger – likely a stone feeding trough for animals. There was no word given on whether or not there was mid-wife or facsimile of a nurse.

Certainly, many women, throughout the annals of history, have earned the right to say it.  But it is, perhaps, Mary who can declare it the loudest and most clearly:  “I am woman!  Hear me roar!”  Her child, as Simeon said, was “destined for the fall and rising of many.”  He said that “a sword would pierce” her own soul too.

The more you study her life and the more you meditate upon it, the more astounded you become.  What a range of experience!  What a life!  BOTH women and men could and can benefit from the kind of moxie, if you will, exhibited by Mary!

This past week, I heard the story of a young man who works at Christian Brothers Automotive in Corinth.  On Saturdays, the business opens for what he called “Single Mother Oil Change.”  Any single mother can come in and get their oil changed for free.  He told about how he had an ideal childhood, but then his parents were divorced when he was five years old.  After that, his mother raised him.  She attended to his every need and then held down a full-time job too.  He marveled at her.  This young man, a Christian, wanted to devote his calling to service of some kind, and he did.   Specifically, he decided to help out women in one area that could really help:  auto maintenance.  Think about how we all depend on our automobiles and trucks, etc., to get us from point A to point B. 

This gentleman spoke of one client – a single mother with three children under eight years of age – who came in for an oil change.  They did a complimentary system check on her car which brought forth some unpleasant news.  To her dismay, it would cost her $1,800.00 to repair the auto and make it road-worthy.   This mother – a full-time worker who was raising three children on her own – depended on that car.  Something goes wrong with that car, and she can’t get kids to school and herself to work, and life comes crumbling down on something more than a small scale! 

Well, this young man has some friends with deep pockets.  They told him, “If you have someone who needs help getting that car fixed, give us a call.”  Without the woman knowing it, that’s what this man did.  He called his friends.  He called the woman back.  She said, amid tears, “I just cannot afford eighteen hundred dollars.”  He said, “Bring it in anyway.”  In a little over an hours time, the tears of sadness in that woman’s eyes  turned to ones of happiness.  Her purple, if you will, had turned to pink.  Her sorrow over her predicament had turned to joy.   And there was no charge.  That’s grace, my friends.

USA Today reported, last week, that Americans are more pessimistic about the future than they have ever been.  Their polls and statistics bear that out, and we probably agree with the assessment.  What is it, then, I ask, that will turn our pessimistic purple into pink? 

We’ve heard bits and pieces of the incredible life of Mary today.  I shared a story of grace in action at Christian Brothers Automotive.  But we’ll need more than mother Mary’s example and an eighteen hundred dollar repair job.  We need our Lord; our incarnate Lord born that first Christmas; our crucified, risen, ascended, coming-againg-to-judge-the-quick-and-the-dead Lord. 

Our souls do not need examples so much as they need to become magnifying glasses.  Mary exclaimed:

My soul magnifies the Lord

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has been mindful

of the humble state of his servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

for the Mighty One has done great things for me—

holy is his name.

His mercy extends to those who fear him,

from generation to generation.

His mercy extended to you and to me – and from generation to generation.  And that’s how purple gives way to pink, guilt to forgiveness, sorrow to joy, death to new life.  Amen.