Christmas Lection: The Epistle (Letter) of Titus 2:11-14; 3:4-6

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all,
training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly,
13 while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 14 He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds. 3:4-6
3:4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the . . . renewal by the Holy Spirit. 6 This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

An “epistle” is more than a letter. It, like the four Gospels is a religious tract. The Gospels were written to introduce people to the Good News of God’s second and free offer of life to the world through Jesus-a man who lived the same life we live in real space-time history (of Nazareth), and one who fulfilled the messianic promise of Israel (the Christ). The epistles, including those of the Apostles James, Jude, Paul and Peter were written to encourage and guide those early Jewish and later Gentile communities of faith that emerged in response to the former.

Titus summarizes the Christmas message thusly for the church: the grace of God appeared. It came in human form—Jesus demonstrated unconditional acceptance and love for human beings, forgiveness, piety, holiness, patience, fairness and understanding. He gave himself, as an example of what love requires of all of us. It is not always painless and pleasant, almost never EASY, but we are enabled by a release of the spiritual power and gifts that is in each of us through God’s very act of creation..

We are purified for a purpose. Not so we can run around celebrating how pure we are, or how much better we are than those who do not believe and adhere and trust in and rely on God. We are set apart and called to a discipline life of living for the well being of others and not just ourselves, because we live with the joy of knowing that we are forgiven and accepted and loved and embraced by God even though were are just as prone to evil and selfishness as anyone else. In this joy we become a people “zealous for good deeds!”

So let’s make Christmas real by claiming our power and experiencing that power through individual and collective acts that enhance the lives of others.

The “Bay-nest Monster" - And the Winner of First-Place Prize for Scrooge 2011-Chevron

As I write, Chevron (formerly Standard Oil) is trying to get a refund of approximately $50 - $60 million on its Richmond refinery property tax payments for 2004-2006. If this effort is successful, it could set a precedent for a potential refund of over $150 million for 2004-2009. Having done business here since 1904, Chevron contributed $3.7 million to local organizations. Not enough to have any real impact, but enough to fuel its PR engine and to get the myriad of competing small and ineffective social service providers in the Greater Richmond communities fighting over crumbs and caution silence to would-be critics of Chevron's calumny.

Oh, I forgot to mention this. Chevron posted record profits in each of the last five years, and its profits for the third quarter of 2011 were $7,830,000,000 (seven billion, eight hundred thousand), (while the rest of us are combating recession-depression. This quarterly profit means that its “charitable contribution" to the surrounding community is 0.047% of the profit it made in just three months (July-September, 2011).

Because of lobbying efforts to keep much of Greater Richmond unincorporated and available for questionable and low tax land use, Richmond, California is a series of pockets, many steeped in poverty and others, islands of affluence. This lack of geographic unity and stability also translates into demographic chaos, which has created the objective social conditions where the middle class is shrinking and moving away, While this occurs, companies like Pixar (under the then leadership of the much heralded late Steve Jobs) grew strong off Richmond’s low taxes and and favorable land use, and then when rich enough, moved its operations to Emeryville for a sweeter deal.

As with Chevron, their employees (none of which were from the community) did not like having to work around “those people.” That’s why I don’t take my grandchildren to see Pixar movies. We need to start selectively boycotting those who boycott us, and that includes Chevron, Pixar and Wal-Mart. We can’t get all the culprits all at once, but we can selectively put pressure on these obvious corporate raiders and destroyers of middle class America to repent or face dwindling profits (hello Bank of America). Anyway ARCO premium seems to last longer in my car than Chevron.

Chevron is so cynical and disrespectful of the community that it had the temerity this fall to offer 14 jobs to anyone in Richmond who applied for them. Of course these were low paying and menial. Black and brown college graduates who live in the community never seem to get a first interview with Chevron. A glimpse of the skeletal workforce that remains after Chevron moved many of their research and development jobs to San Ramon (again because their engineers and technicians were “not comfortable” working around so many poor "overly-melanized" people and “immigrants” living in “blighted areas).”

The tax breaks that Chevron with a large army of lawyers is seeking, will mean the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, but also the most “colorful” part of Contra Costa County will experience more cuts in public safety, education, and basic services. It will have a severe impact on an already struggling West Contra Costa Unified School District. These tax breaks will also result in the layoffs of city, country, school district, water, and etc. workers at a time when we are already experiencing record unemployment and a recession that is in reality worse than the 1930s Depression.

But I believe Chevron wants the community to disintegrate, because its deterioration is the basis for its claim that it is overtaxed. The city of Richmond has tried, mostly in vain, to stem the pollution that is so toxic in the air where I and other Richmondites seek to live quietly and peacefully. It is angry that we have stopped it from expanding its ugly operations over the entire waterfront and into more at-risk residential communities.

Meanwhile it seeks to take back $60 million after having cynically contributed less than $4 million to the community's dire needs. Its like wanting to terminate an employee for missing work due to illness, while having her or him work in such a toxic environment that they can never recover their health. As we sit through this Christmas watching “Scrooged,” I would challenge the occupiers who have settled before the cameras in San Francisco and Oakland and Berkeley to just turn your heads a little toward the peninsula that separates the San Francisco and San Pablo Bays (apparently we are invisible to some). Richmond is a wonderful community, notwithstanding the high unemployment rate and poverty. On any given warm sunny day, you can to to the parks and beaches and see numerous families (fathers, mothers, grandparents) with their children, enjoying the California life as best they can on very limited resources. While many small companies and both national and international corporations enjoy our generous tax breaks and land use policies, they don’t seem to want to pay any taxes for operating at here all, and tend to abandon us once they have gotten all they can get from us.

Again-Ebenezer Scrooge move over! Chevron demands recognition for First Place Christmas Scrooge Award.

The Magnificent Song of Mary

Fourth Sunday of Advent Gospel of St. Luke-1:51-53

"He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty."

"The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Even worse, we live in a day when people have become so arrogant because of the accolades heaped on them from hero/idol worshipers, that they presume to accept and give themselves praise as if to say, "I am God." You hear people saying, "We need to elect someone who will 'save us,'" or thanking someone for "making life or 'it' possible for them." This is the foolishness that made the gentle Psalmist (14:1) become so harsh in her/his composition.

Upon hearing the news that she is to give birth to the promised Messiah, the virgin mother of God acknowledges, not her own greatness, not her own importance, not her own significance, not her own role, but she extols God, she magnifies not Mary, not the child to be born, but the God who will use both as a channel to demonstrate unconditional love, by delivering humanity from a condition of our own making.

The final call of Advent is an old call. It is a call to turn to God and away from idolatry: the praise of human beings (any human being) and all that human beings conceive, make and plan. No matter how good or how great our achievements, our personalities, our accomplishments, our status, our inventions, our creativity. The focus of all life is the God "in whom we live, move and have our very existence." All else leads to frustration and a denial of the God who loves us and cares for us even as we deny God.

In this evil time, we are surrounded by business leaders, clergy, educators, international and local political leaders, friends, spouses, significant others, parents, children, aunts, uncles, community leaders--all who make the claim for their significance. They believe that have the right to tell us to shop for things we don't need, to sing songs about fictitious fat elves in red suits who encourage us to hit the departments stores, the jewelry shops, the sporting goods stores and the big boxes--all to celebrate one who was born in poverty and calls us to simplicity of lifestyle, to forsake greed, to forsake cultural and social climbing, to deny ourselves the benefit of status and importance, and to elevate others as being more important and of greater significance than ourselves,

How do we let advertising, newspapers, Hollywood, the music industry, Wall Street and all other the "pimps" and "pushers" of business enterprise, hijack the birth, resurrection of the very one they deny by their practices and marketing strategies? Do not miss the judgment implicit in the call to Advent. Do not sit in a sanctuary or shopping mall or political gathering or Christmas party or Hanukkah observance and allow "a fool" to make a fool of you, and you make a fool of yourself, by letting them claim that they or what they do or what they have done or what they promise to do, merits the loyalty and devotion that is God's and God's alone. Do not delude yourself that you will be happy if you just "find the right person." No. Its the other way around. You are the right person that GOD is looking to use, just as he chose Mary, to make a difference in the world for good.

In our One-Year Bible reading for this same Sunday, God speaks through the prophet Habakkuk (2:18-20)-"Of what value is an idol, since a man has carved it? Or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak. . . . But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him." Mary did not trust in what she was going to do, but in what God was going to do through her. She understood Jesus not to be her creation, nor the creation of Joseph, but of God. In faith she received it, by offering praise to the only God our Savior, who through unfailing, unspeakable love has been deemed worthy of all Glory, Majesty, Dominion and Power now and Forever.

A fist full of dollars . . .

Advent III, 

Isaiah 61:1-8
1 The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD . . . has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; 8. For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing;

Gospel of St. Luke 1:52-53
52. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; 53. He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. 

The texts for the Third Sunday of Advent remind us that Jesus’ mission was indeed “prophetic” and “political.” The soothsayers and false prophets of our time are more the spokespersons for the affluent and powerful than they are for the poor and the oppressed. Our own government seeks to remove the tax status of those churches that would be prophetic.

In the One-Year Bible reading for today (Amos 2:12) we read, “but you have commanded the prophets not to prophesy.” The whole Gospel includes the call to individual and societal transformation. When we respond to the Lordship of Jesus Christ our personal souls and our personal practices must align with the demands of the Gospel for holiness of character and life. Those who would oppress the poor, who would break the hearts, the wills, and pocketbooks of the people and create poverty and human misery, those who would create hunger and ignorance and homelessness for a fist full of dollars, are forever seeking leaders and pastors and rabbis and priests and imams and politicians who will give them a sugar-coated message.

They also seek to silence those who would dare speak God’s truth in an age of coddling the rich and famous, or giving the best seats in churches and synagogues and temples and mosques, to those who “sell the righteous for silver, the needy for a pair of shoes, trample the heads of the poor, and deny justice to the oppressed (Amos 2:6-7).” They hate the Bible and the message that it contains, because it is uncompromising in its clear condemnation of exploitation of neighbor and nations. Don’t buy the popular okey- doke against the sacred Word of God, which in its pages offers us the pathway to life and true prosperity-a world of peace free from aggression against the life and livelihood of its people.

The promise . . .

 To him who is able to keep you from falling and present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages now and forevermore! Amen (Jude 24, 25).

This is God’s promise to all of us. If we will trust God unconditionally, God will complete the development of our characters and personalities. Further God promises to do this for all ages, in each incarnation of our existence. Jude’s reiteration of the promise is to support the prophecy he quotes in his letter regarding false teachers. This was a promise of Enoch, who he writes is “the seventh Adam.” While the Judeo-Christian faith speaks little of this truth from ancient antiquity, it can be found throughout the Bible.

Jude bases the strength of his proclamation that “certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you . . . who deny Jesus, our only sovereign and Lord” on the fact that the 7th incarnation of Adam himself, God's first human-spiritual creation on the earth, made this prophetic announcement long before the Advent of the Christ.

Making the change . . .

2nd Sunday of Advent also One-Year Bible 12/01/11

2 Peter 3:9, 13, 15
9 The Lord . . . is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 13 In accordance with God’s promise we strive for new heavens, a new earth where all do the right thing. 15 And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. The Huffington Post Friday, December 2, 2011 reports: “After a bank issued an eviction notice for a home in Northwest Atlanta, sheriff's deputies and movers went to the residence to remove the people who lived there. But when they found Vinia Hall, 103, and her daughter, Vita Lee, 83, the movers and deputies decided not to follow through with it.”

The efforts of the “Occupy Movement” are a witness. Evil in the form of corporate greed such as unscrupulous real estate transactions, layoffs and job exports is not the last word. God has just human beings who in accordance with their faith, love, and human decency will act and protest on behalf of the poor and marginalized. Each such act in the language of 2 Peter 3:8-15, “hastens God’s new day, new heaven and new earth.” These acts serve to inform and guide others in real concrete repentance—turning away from and standing against all forms of injustice (sin). They are also signs for those engaged wittingly and unwittingly in creating suffering and misery; that Love is there for them too. It’s not too late to make a change.