The Parable of the Ten Virgins
¹“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. ²Five of them were foolish and five were wise. ³The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. ⁴The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. ⁵The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

⁶“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

⁷“Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. ⁸The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

⁹” ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

¹⁰“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

¹¹“Later the others also came. ‘Sir! Sir!’ they said. ‘Open the door for us!’

¹²“But he replied, ‘I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.’

¹³“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

As I thought today about this being Epiphany, this parable came to mind. I definitely feel like one of the wedding party who didn’t plan ahead—I rushed headlong into Advent, ready to prepare, prepare, prepare! However, I wasn’t really ready, and my actions—a lack of writing discipline here, and falling off the beam otherwise—are just the fruits of that lack of preparation.

When I woke up the morning of the 19th, I thought to myself, “It’s all downhill from here.” I’d had my yearly pilgrimage to Nashville. I’d been a part of our concert. Honestly, it felt like Christmas had come and gone already—I’d built so much into stuff before Christmas that I didn’t have much energy for the actual event, much less the immediate aftermath.

But the great thing about grace is that we’re always set back on our feet, dusted off, and encouraged to move forward. We are cared for, loved, and supported—although our unfaithfulness surely doesn’t merit such concern. I am certainly grateful that our God is more faithful than we are—if He weren’t, we’d really be hosed.

Now, if you’ll excuse me … I’ve gotta go find some oil for my lamp to keep it burnin’, burnin’, burnin’ …

2005 was a big year of transitions for me. If you’d told me a year ago today that I’d be sitting in my first house typing this entry, I would have laughed at you. I probably would have laughed harder if you’d told me that I would have moved from Huntsville and over into Madison. I have become what I used to mock.

This year also saw me change congregations and move my membership. My old church, Aldersgate UMC, was the one I’d been a member of the longest in my life. It was hard in many ways to leave that church, but I think that the move has ultimately been good for me. I’ve heard a little about some of the changes in the ministries I was involved in there since I left, and … I’m sad for the changes.

I look forward to looking back on this time of my life, hoping that the changes that I’ve made have been good ones. I’m sure that God will work good out of my bad choices, and any good choices I’ve made are simply to His credit and not my own.

Friend, I hope the New Year, 2006, treats you well.

Yesterday, I wrote:

All too often, I find myself focusing on either Jesus’s birth or His work on the Cross. There’s so much in the middle to be savored. As I find myself in post-Christmas doldrums, I think I should go read some parables tonight…

Yeah, I never made that happen last night. As the “Advent Postings” to-do stared me in the face a few minutes ago, I sighed and decided I’d dive in. I pulled out my Treo, figured I’d start in Luke, and just guessed on Luke 6. I landed on Luke 6:6-11:

A Man with a Withered Hand
⁶On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. ⁷And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. ⁸But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. ⁹And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” ¹⁰And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. ¹¹But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

This story, for me, encapsulates Jesus’s earthly ministry: doing what was right, not what was necessarily lawful. Now, we can all too easily use this ethos to justify our lawless actions—forgetting that, as Paul noted, we should be dead to the law only because we should be dead to sin through life in Christ. Jesus wasn’t lawless because He loved anarchy—He was lawless because He knew God’s true Law, and He knew that only faith in Him alone was salvific.

I write this living in Alabama, a state primed to watch its Legislature push a bunch of “faith-based” initiatives through next year, as it’s an election year and the evangelical Right quite definitely has a home here. I’d like to remind my fellow Alabamians that nothing about the law saves us, and that the law only serves to codify our sinful natures. Some laws are quite necessary for the smooth functioning of society; much of the dreck you’re going to see shoved through in the name of God and Getting Re-elected, well, that’s just not going to be necessary.

As Kari notes, the Incarnation of Jesus is just the beginning:

Every year during Lent (at other times, too, but especially during Lent), I try to remember that, as these verses say, Jesus came and suffered and is able to help us as we are being tempted. That he was like us in every way, and that we can bring our struggles before him. That he understands and will not reject us. That he is not ashamed of us, despite our faults. The Incarnation means not only that Jesus came here to earth as a child but also that he lived here just as we do, as the song says, “Like a child born to pray and to show us the way, like a child here to stay, Jesus comes.” I am thankful to have a God who understands the struggles I experience because he actually walked this earth, and who, as the scripture says, by his life and death set us free from the power of death. It’s not just the birth and the death that are important - the life of Christ, the way he shared in our humanity for our sake, his teachings and example, are important, too. This year I’m trying to remember to focus on Jesus’ life not just at Lent, but also at Christmas, and at all the times in between.

All too often, I find myself focusing on either Jesus’s birth or His work on the Cross. There’s so much in the middle to be savored. As I find myself in post-Christmas doldrums, I think I should go read some parables tonight…

As I noted on my Weblog, I was driving on Sunday, and I didn’t get to attend a church service.

I’m really feeling like I missed out. As great as my two weeks were prior to Christmas with church stuff, I felt that shifting my focus to my family and away from God somehow took a little bit away from the season for me.

Since I was awake, I should have snuck away and gone to Guin UMC’s 11:00 p.m. Christmas Eve service. :sigh: Oh well.

As Jeff notes, the arrival of the winter solstice today means that this really is the darkest night of the year:

It is a fascinating juxtaposition that at this darkest time of the year, we are given the most hope. Christmas tells us that something big is coming, something is going to redeem us. Our time has finally come. No one knew what was going to happen, but everyone involved in Bethlehem from Joseph and Mary to the shepards to the wise men knew that something was about to happen. At the time when things seemed dark, when their very lives were ruled by a far away empire, there was a single light in a star that tells us all hope is not lost. I wonder if its a coincidence that all of this happens at the darkest time of the year?

Because of Jeff, I became a fan of Over The Rhine. Jeff talks a little about their Christmas album—named … wait for it … The Darkest Night of the Year—and it’s one that I love. I remember waiting last year to break it out only after Thanksgiving started, and that’s something I did again this year. My favorite song has to be “Amelia’s Last”:

Amelia’s Last

these are the (whose are the?)
these are the raw materials
you and me
these are the (whose are the?)
these are the angels’ inferiors
who
someone breathed this breath in us
“oh amelia, we’ve so far to go
oh amelia”

these are the (whose are the?)
these are the ordinary clothes
you and me
around extraordinary flesh and pulsing madness deep and close
who
someone breathed this breath in us
“oh amelia maybe we’re not that far
oh amelia is this who we really are
my amelia”

I definitely feel like raw materials and angels’ inferior, especially at this time of year, and especially again this year.

But … someone breathed this breath in us, and that is what gives us hope.

Apparently, this is the year that the Religious Right decided to adopt the Left’s victimization ethos and complain about the “war on Christmas”.

Honestly, unless Christmas displays in and outside our houses of worship and our individual homes are suddenly banned, I really don’t give a damn what secular society does. Secular society has made the Christmas season into its own retail cash cow, setting up their money-changing tables in the temple of our Advent season. However, they’re not setting up those temples in the actual Temple—nor should we let them.

My friend Kari noted in a discussion we were having about this phenomenon that she and her husband, the studious Mike, don’t really have the angst that some of our peers seem to have:

We have TiVo, so we never see commercials, and we don’t spend much time shopping, so I think we miss out on a lot of the ads and consumerism. I met some friends at the mall yesterday, and it was the first time I’d been to the mall since . . . the summer, maybe. I don’t think it’s that hard to avoid the consumerism.

Frankly, I’m with them. Yes, I take the local paper, but I ignore the ads. Being a Web-head has helped me to just tune that stuff out. I toss the circulars aside, mainly [I keep the one for Kroger because it's just down the road from me ... but I never remember to clip the coupons, heh]. I think we can ignore the commercialization if we’re willing to just not consider it a part of the season.

The other half of it is this: we act like we’re the only ones with a holiday this time of year. The Jews celebrate Hannukah in December as well—would we want stores telling us, “Happy Hannukah!”? I rather doubt it. Say what you want about Kwanzaa, too, but … it’s been made legitimate by the fuss people make about it. Personally, I don’t make any note of it, but then I expect that most non-Christians make little note of anything really having to do with Christmas.

Lastly, I don’t really care if someone who’s out serving money is wishing me a Merry Christmas. I’d rather that such wishes come from those who remember that, in three or four months, we have to celebrate all the horrible pain of Easter, too—and how Death has lost its sting. Sure, the moneymakers have made that be about money, too, but … it’s just a stupid bunny.

Me, I’ve got bigger things to be pissed off about than this…

At one point during tonight’s cantata, Psalm 150 came to mind:

Let Everything Praise the LORD
¹Praise the LORD!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens!
²Praise him for his mighty deeds;
praise him according to his excellent greatness!

³Praise him with trumpet sound;
praise him with lute and harp!
⁴Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!
⁵Praise him with sounding cymbals;
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
⁶Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD!

After it was all over tonight, I had to take a seat. I was tired, sweaty, and out-of-breath. While some of this is because I’m quite out of shape, we had also just expended a lot of effort in praising God and singing of Christ’s coming as a tiny baby. I noticed that many of my fellow choir members were similarly tired after all was sung and done.

Praise the Lord until you’re out of breath, folks.

I’d like to ask my handful of readers here for some prayer for my church’s Christmas cantata tomorrow night. I’ve got to sing and read, and … uncharacteristically, I’m nervous about it.

I’m going to see if I can get a recording of the concert for my family. If I can get it, I’ll share it.

I was joking with Jason and Spencer about Jason wondering if it was a sin for him to host his Weblog on [rocksmyfaceoff.net]; I joked that it would only be a venial sin to give me money. [And actually, while I do tithe, I don't consider the .net to be income; it's still not even making money.]

We then devolved into a discussion as to whether Methodists have apostolic succession. Of course, this subject has come up here before in my comments, and at the time, I linked to Dr. Greg Neal on the matter of Methodist apostolic succession.

I also did some digging in Wikipedia, which convinced me that we really don’t … if you consider it important for Wesley himself to have been a bishop. However, that’s not Neal’s argument:

Nowhere in Scripture do we find it stated, however, that only Episcopoi laid on hands for ordination to ministry. Nor can we find anything which limits the ordinational power to just the Episcopoi. Such limitations began to appear in the practice of the Church around the middle of the second century and, for the most part, have continued on to this day in those denominations which have maintained the Episcopal form of Church Government.

[I converted the CAPS to emphasized text. I hate caps.]

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, Neal takes us all the way back to Christ from himself, which I think is pretty cool. Neal’s finishing point is the key here:

As the above list indicates, the only technical break in the Methodist Episcopal line comes at its foundation, with Father Wesley. However, the Alexandrian experience of emergency consecrations to the Episcopacy during the absence of a Bishop, supports his action in consecrating Dr. Thomas Coke to the Episcopacy in 1784.

I find this stuff fascinating…