He caused quite a stir among the shoppers. Many dismissed him as an annoying nut; some found him an eccentric "hoot." He was dressed in a tattered flannel shirt and jeans. No one knew where he spent the night, but he was seen rummaging around the dumpsters for scraps of food from Orange Julius and McDonald’s.

Every day he could be found by the beautifully lighted fountain near the mall's food court. Despite his ragged appearance and that slightly "off" look in his eyes, there was a kindness and sincerity about him that drew people to him.

He would ask them why they would spend so much money for Christmas, why they would allow themselves to become so obsessed and stressed out over this tinseled holiday. "We like our Christmas with a lot of sugar, don't we?" he would tease. But Christmas is about hope and love, he said .and that can be a struggle. Give gifts of kindness and compassion to each other. Seek forgiveness and reconciliation from family and friends who may be lost to you. Let the spirit of the Christ Child embrace every season of the year not just December.

Those who listened would nod in agreement as he spoke .even as they tightened their grips on their shopping bags. Some were moved to quit shopping and go home to be with their families, others would go off and buy an extra toy or piece of clothing for charity; a few would even be moved to escape to a church or chapel for quiet prayer.

Sometimes he would rail against the insipid music and the gaudy decorations. When the mall Santa would walk by, he would make fun of him, asking the embarrassed Santa pointed questions about the real Christmas story.

Soon, though, the store owners had had enough of his distractions. The mall managers had security escort him from the premises. He wasn't really hurting anyone, they realized. But he had to go, they said. He was ruining everyone's Christmas.

From autos to video games, from clothing to calories, this is the time of the year when our society indulges in an orgacquisitionsiton. It is as though we are trying to fill a hole in the bottom of our sole with the giving and receiving of stuff. There is a false, but powerful conviction that the more stuff we give or get, the more we love or are loved.

You may remember the commercial that appeared on TV some years ago. They were advertising stuff to store stuff in. This family is surrounded by a flood of their belongings, and they cry out, "what can we do with all this stuff?" They march off the mall where they purchase the stuff to keep stuff in, and put their stuff in it. All of a sudden their house is neat and tidy, and they cry out: "We need to get more stuff!"

From the world’s point of view, it was a family who had it made. They had it all. From motor home, home and boat in the driveway to the $200,000 house, they had everything a family want. Everything, that is, but joy.

Last Sunday evening I did a ride along with the Salem Police Department, and we responded to a domestic disturbance call at that home. In spite of all the things the world had provided them, the husband and wife were more adversaries than partners, the children, an added stress. He more of the so-called good life they had acquired, the more apart they had grown, until, tonight, it had come to blows.

What this family was learning the hard way was that, while the things of the world might bring short-term happiness, they cannot bring joy. As they sought to fill the empty place in the bottom of their souls with stuff, they came to realize that stuff only compels us to acquire more stuff. And all the stuff in the world cannot bring true happiness, all the stuff in the world cannot bring joy.

Unlike happiness, which comes from outside ourselves, Joy, the joy Paul calls us to express, can only come from within. Joy, we learn in Galatians 5:22, is a fruit of the Spirit. That is, true joy results from our giving our lives over to Jesus, and walking with Him in the light and presence of the Holy Spirit.

When we live in the Spirit, we understand Paul’s mandate to "Rejoice always. When we live in the Spirit, rejoicing and joy are a natural part of our being. We are joyful, even in the face of affliction and hardship because, deep down inside, the space in the bottom of our soul that was once empty, is now filled: not with things, but with the sure and certain knowledge that we are loved, accepted, and desired by God.

This is the promise proclaimed by John’s voice crying in the wilderness. The one who would come after him, the one whose shoes he was unfit to tie, JN 1:15 He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, `He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " [16] From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another."

It is these blessings that bring us joy. It is in these blessings that Paul writes to the Philippians, and to us: Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" Be calm, Let your gentleness be evident to all. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. And it is Christ Jesus, the one who is the reason for the fuss, the one whose birth we celebrate, who is the source and reason for our joy. Rejoice and make him welcome! AMEN.

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Let me be perfectly clear, my son-in-law, Chris, is one of the finest young men I have ever known. He loves our daughter and our grandchildren deeply, and takes good care of them. I love him as a son. But he does have one character flaw. He is a turkey hunter.

I don’t know how much you may know about turkey hunting. But when Chris goes hunting he gets up at “O-way too dark-thirty” and heads for the woods. He settles into his blind and sits...and sits...and sits. Waiting, not moving, not humming or singing, not even talking to himself, just sitting and waiting, sometimes for hours, just for a three second chance to shoot a turkey. Sometimes he waits for hours and doesn’t even see a turkey!

Me, I don’t think I’d like turkey hunting. I’m not very good at sitting and waiting. When I was a hunter, I hunted pheasant. Pheasant hunters don’t sit and wait, they walk up and down the corn rows and through the ditches. Pheasant hunters don’t have to be silent, indeed, noise is a good thing, for what a pheasant hunter wants to do is scare the bird into flight for a three second chance to get off a shot.

The truth is that like turkey hunters, pheasant hunters are also waiting. The difference is in what they do while they wait. Both John the Baptizer and Peter are waiting for Christ. John announces and awaits the coming of the Messiah while Peter awaits his return. Both assure us he is coming, and both tell us how to live as we wait.

John the Baptizer would have been a pheasant hunter. He urged the people to wait actively. When the crowd asked John how they should go about waiting, he told them: “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same." To the tax collectors he said: LK 3:13 "Don't collect any more than you are required to." And to the soldiers he said: "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely--be content with your pay."

In the same way, Peter calls us to actively work for the kingdom as we await the return of the King. He urges us “to live holy and godly lives [12] as we look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. To speed the coming of the kingdom is more than simply staying out of trouble. The call to speed the coming of the kingdom is a call to prayer and action. John Bunyan reminds us “You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” Or, as an unknown poet has written:

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end war;
For we know that You have made the world in a way
That man must find his own path to peace
Within himself and with his neighbor.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end starvation;
For you have given us the resources
With which to feed the entire world
If we would only use them wisely.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to root out prejudice,
For You have already given us eyes
With which to see the good in all men
If we would only use them rightly.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end despair,
For You have already given us the power
To clear away slums and to give hope
If we would only use our power justly.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end disease,
For you have already given us great minds with which
To search out cures and healing,
If we would only use them constructively.

Therefore we pray to You instead, O God,
For strength, determination, and willpower,
To do, instead of just to pray,
To become, instead of merely to wish.”

Active waiting takes our prayers and turns them into action. Active waiting turns our prayers for the hungry into food boxes and our prayers for the oppressed into political pressure to bring about liberty. Active waiting turns our prayers for the homeless into soup kitchens, shelters, job training and counseling. Active waiting turns our prayers for the sick and lonely into visits and invitations. Active waiting turns our prayers for peace into acts of mercy and justice that span regional and national borders. Active waiting transforms individuals, congregations, and the church into doers of the word, and not hearers only, and it is in the doing f the word that we, individually and as the church, speed the coming we pray for when we say: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Rev. Dan Rondeau invites us:
Come with me into West Texas during the Depression. Mr. Ira Yates was like many other ranchers and farmers. He had a lot of land, and a lot of debt. Mr. Yates wasn’t able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch. With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on a government subsidy Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then a seismographic crew from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract. At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large. In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day. And Mr. Yates owned it all. The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he’d been living on relief. A multimillionaire living in poverty. The problem? He didn’t know the oil was there even though he owned it.

It is fair to say that you and I are a lot like Mr. Yates at times. We are heirs of a vast treasure and yet we live in spiritual poverty. We are entitled to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and his energizing power, and yet we live unaware of our birthright.

Today we have the opportunity to claim our birthright, to bring forth the kingdom we pray for, to become not just a congregation, but part and parcel of the body of Christ. Redeemed by his blood, we are called by the spirit into active waiting for his return; active waiting that manifests itself in turning our prayers into action; active waiting that manifests itself in ministry to all the world; active waiting that manifests itself in the kingdom coming, on earth as it is in heaven.

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Fay is busy decorating and cleaning for the UMW’s annual visit next (M-Sunday, C-Thursday.) Like most of you, when we expect company, we take the time to prepare for them, we want to honor them with our very best. On the other hand, if you just drop in at the parsonage, and you are certainly invited to do so, you may not find things quite as organized. Fay may have the table covered with the paperwork for paying the bills, or I may have my fly-tying gear set up on the counter. The bag with my gym clothes may be next to the door, the carpet may be unvaccumed, and I probably won’t have a coat and tie on. It’s not that we aren’t honored by your visit, but when no one is specifcally expected, well, life just goes on.

Too ofen life just goes on for the followers of Jesus. Although you and I, are instructed to to expect his return, life spends a lot of time getting in our way. He tells us he doesn’t know when he will come, then gives us signs, indications that will tell us the time He is coming is near: it’s not a pretty list. There will be a time of distress and a time of darkness, a time when the sun and the moon cease to shine, and the stars fall from the skies. So frightening were these images that the early church, the church of Mark’s time, lived in nervous anticipation. Harry Potter fans might liken it to the way in which Harry and his friends awaited the return of Voldemort, only for us, the times that mark the end, mark the beginning. What the world sees as the end of time, we see as the beginning of a new age, an age when all creation will be reconciled to God, the one who created and loves us.

As the years since Voldemort’s dissappearance grew, there were those who doubted his return, Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore among them. In the meantime others spent their time trying to tell when he would come back. In the same way, as the years since the ascension have increased, the sense of anxiousness in the church has decreased. Although, from time to time cults have arisen, claiming the imminence of the return. In the 1830's, a small sect built their churches without roofs, so that they wouldn’t be hurt as they were raptured. In the early days of the Jehovah’s Witness movement, several different prophesied rapture dates passed without the world ending. More recently, the Branch Davidians awaited the end in their Waco compound, as do many small splinter groups to this day.

Prophesying the end is big business. The time, money, paper, and web space spent trying to determine when Jesus will come back would clothe, house, feed and free a goodly number of the poor, the oppressed, and the powerless. Wouldn’t that be a better way to watch for Christ, obeying his final command to feed his sheep and tend his lambs. After all, MK 13:32 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. [33] Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.”

If Jesus doesn’t know, how can we. Our job is not to predict, but to watch for his return.

My colleague Bass Mitchell tells this Parable of the Boss & the Warehouse Workers.Once there was a man who owned a warehouse and trucking business. He was a wealthy man with many employees. He could be a stern boss. He expected everyone to do their job as best they could. He tolerated no slackers.

But he was also a kind man. Each year he volunteered his services at Christmas to receive non-perishable food items from anyone who wished to give them. His employees kept records of what was given, of needy families who needed them, packed up and even delivered the food, all at no charge to anyone.

One day he came over the loudspeaker and announced, "I have to go out of town for a time. I don't know how long I will be. But I am counting on you to continue to do your jobs." He left.

For a time everything went as usual. But as the days became weeks, the weeks months, things changed. The persons in the office began a contest to see who among them could name the day when the boss would return. The winner would get the money which you had to pay in order to make a guess. Daily tallies were announced over the intercom.

Many others began sitting around talking about why the boss was away so long and wondering when he would get back or if he would return at all. Others went through the papers and letters in his office, combing for days and weeks over everything for clues when he might return. They printed newsletters and pamphlets giving their ideas and presenting evidence for when they thought he would return. One gave a daily lecture over the intercom about the latest "Boss Watch" findings. One booklet even had a pull out chart that claimed to know exactly where the boss had gone, every place he would visit before returning, and even the exact day and hour when he would get back. Most everyone bought a copy and it even was doing well outside the warehouse as people in the city were beginning to wonder about the return of the boss, too. Rumors were that Hollywood might even make a movie out of it or maybe a mini-series. Many others wrote their own books but each one was very different than the other, and often they engaged in heated debates about who was right.

The result was that many people were afraid, confused, and distracted by the endless speculations. Many stopped working altogether and stood looking out the windows for the return of the boss. And all the while the food items were piling higher and higher.

But there were a few who paid no attention to the endless speculations. All they remembered was the last words of the boss, "I am counting on you to do your jobs." So they did their jobs and the jobs of everyone else. They worked in the office. They packed the food. They kept delivering it, though there was always more work than they could do as they were so few. But they were not afraid. They, too, wondered sometimes at the delay of the boss, but they were just too busy to worry very much about it. The boss said that he would return and was counting on them to do their jobs. That was all that mattered to them.

“Tell me,” asks my colleague, “when the boss does return, who do you think will be truly ready for him? With whom do you think he will be most pleased? If you worked there, with what group of workers would you be found?”

In the meantime, as we wait and work, Christ has provided for us. He has given us both the Holy Spirit, and this sacramental meal, a meal that draws us together, strengthens our ties to Him, and nourishes us for the watch. Come, the table is prepared. Come prepare yourself for the watch. Come, eat, drink, and be ready! AMEN.

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This Is My Father's World

The space for this web site has been provided courtesy of the General Board of Global Ministeries, The United Methodist Church.
The content of these pages is the responsibility of Regis Peregrin, member of Carus United Methodist Church.
Please send feeback to carus_um@gbgmchurches.gbgm-umc.org
Created November 16, 2002 ; Last updated, January 20, 2003