Saint Matthew's

How many people of non-Christian backgrounds actually put up a Christmas tree?

Very few. Why? It is part of the Christmas (hence, Christian) tradition (though we borrowed it from the pagans centuries and centuries ago). If you’re Jewish or Muslim, the tree has zero meaning.

Then why should we hide the fact that the tree that is going to be decorated, either in people’s homes or in the public square, be called anything but a Christmas tree?

When local municipalities erect a menorah, they don’t call it a "candle stand." No, they erect a menorah – something that is very significant to the Jewish faith. They don’t hide the fact that it is a religious symbol. And, in my opinion, that is a good thing.

But when it comes to a Christmas tree – not a nativity scene and not in anyway overtly religious – municipalities hide the fact that it is a Christmas tree. They call it a generic "Holiday" tree. What a farce!

I bring this up because my hometown of New Milford is having a "holiday tree" lighting ceremony this coming Sunday night at 6:00pm in front of Boro Hall. I will be there (I missed it last year). I’m not happy that they are calling it a "holiday" tree. Maybe next year the town will change…

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Thursday morning has been hectic. Lots of little things to get done. The "guys" were at church this morning taking out all the decorations for our church decorating on Saturday morning. Took them a few hours, but all the Christmas lights work.

Saint Matthew’s now has its licenses for the new synodical hymnal in place – meaning we can officially republish the new liturgies and hymns in our weekly bulletin.

We are finishing up our bulletin for Sunday – we are using Divine Service Three from Lutheran Service Book (the new hymnal). For those here who don’t know what that divine service is (and without a copy of the hymnal in your hands, you wouldn’t have a clue) it is basically the old communion service out of The Lutheran Hymnal. We will do this service from Advent through Epiphany.

Sunday prayers are written. Notes about last night’s midweek service and bible study are written. My full afternoon schedule has been rearranged and ready to go.

Reminder before you get the notice in church this Sunday: poinsettas are on sale – $7.00 per plant.

Another reminder before you get the notice in church this Sunday: we are having a special collection for our Samaritans group here at Saint Matthew’s. They will lead our church in serving a meal at the homeless shelter in Hackensack in January. But it costs money to put on a meal. So, on December 10th, please bring a few extra dollars with you to church and put it in the "large pots" that will be out in the narthex. And since you’re reading this, we’ll put the pots out a week earlier…

Our Adventfest Pot Luck dinner is next Wednesday beginning at 6:00pm. Please consider attending – and if you want, make a dish or two for the dinner. Also, we will be watching a movie afterwards (something Christmasy).

That’s all I have to note about right now….

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I haven’t been posting as usual since the day before Thanksgiving. No particular reason, I have just been going through a lazy blog period. But during this time, I’ve been busy (chuch things).

Of course, spent Thanksgiving Day with the family. The weather stunk, but at least it was rain. Missed the night time NFL game because my former cable company doesn’t carry the NFL Network. This pushed me back to DirecTv (more on this tomorrow).

Last Friday, I wanted to travel Route 17 and maybe go shopping. This was my plan until just after Morning Prayer – reality set in for me. I came home and turned on the local Fox News morning program and watched the helicopter over a local Jersey mall. Instead of sitting in traffic, I stayed home and did some work. So, for my second Christmas as a member of the New Jersey populace, I stayed far and clear of the malls on Black Friday.

Over the weekend, I spent time doing pastor-stuff and watching gas prices rise.

Sunday, well, you all know what I was doing.

Monday, being my day off, really wasn’t the ‘day off’ I expected: I ended up preparing Sunday’s church service. We are moving to Divine Service Three in the new synodical hymnal for the seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.

Then today, I spent the morning in church office, the afternoon driving around, and the afternoon splitting my time between the church and home offices.

Not overwhelmingly busy, but enough to keep me from blogging.

And there has been great stuff to talk about … something I will get to tomorrow. Good night.

Back in August, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Yonkers, New York experienced something that no church should – someone stole one of their 300-lb church bells. They were in the process of tearing down their bell tower that had become too unstable, but they were going to replace the daily ringing of their bells with a new electronic bell system. However, they had made a deal to sell their three bells collectively so they could pay for their new system and its installation.

When a thief (or thieves since no human being is going to run off with a 300-lb bell) ended this dream for Holy Trinity, the City of Yonkers came to their rescue. Particularly, their immediate community that they share with two other Christian churches (a Roman Catholic and a Russian Orthodox) raised money to help pay for the system. Thousands of dollars was raised and yesterday, they dedicated their new bell system, new music system, and their new hymnals to the glory of God at a special afternoon service.

To read more about this wonderful turn of events, the local Westchester County newspaper, The Journal News, wrote about it in their morning edition.

Congratulations to Pastor LeRoy Leach and all the members of Holy Trinity. At a time when thinks look bleak, God’s people came together to help. The mysterious ways of our loving and merciful God…

Oh, Holy Trinity was my former home church prior to being ordained and installed here at Saint Matthew’s.

For all of the glorious reasons to love November and December, I particularly love it because of Christmas music.

XM Satellite Radio has been playing Christmas music for the past week. It has been a sheer pleasure. Last Thursday as I was driving around from Closter to Paramus to Ho-Ho-Kus and back to New Milford, listening to music that can only bring a nice level of peace and comfort in one’s heart made the extended trip magnificent. XM is planning to release other Christmas and holiday related music channels beginning on Thanksgiving, including one dedicated to Hanukkah music. And each of those stations will be something I will be checking out.

But this morning, my heart smiled as I heard one of my favorite bands on XM’s Holly 103 – Mannheim Steamroller. They are a new age synthesizer/acoustic group of three people who make some of the greatest Christmas music I have ever heard. The first time I heard their rendition of “Silent Night” on the Rush Limbaugh Radio Show many years ago, it brought tears to my eyes. This morning, as I sat in my office here at church, I popped open my iTunes and started to listen to them again.

Last year, the big story out of the Central Park Zoo was that two male penguins – Silo and Roy – were raising a chick together – hence, the penquins were gay. The scientific world was beaming that since these little male penguins can live together in harmony and in love, human beings should do the same with homosexual couples in their towns and cities.

Didn’t matter that the penquins eventually “broke up” and one of the penguins started hanging out with a female penguin … the story of these two male penguins raising a little penguin together had to endure.

Now, an illustrated book has been crafted about this story and parents at an elementary school in Illinois aren’t thrilled about it. Not that they want the book banned, but parents have questions as to why this book is there on the shelf.

Read more here.

The funny thing about this story is that the Superintendent of their school system is in favor of the book being in their library thinks that books representing all different religions and ideas be included in a school library.

“My feeling is that a library is to serve an entire population,” (Superintendent Jennifer Filyaw) said. “It means you represent different families in a society — different religions, different beliefs.”

OK. If different religions and beliefs are going to be represented, what about Christianity? Is there a bible on the shelf of this school? Or what about an illustrated book about the true Christmas story? You know, the story of the Son of God being born to a virgin in Bethlehem?

Something tells me that books like those aren’t in this library. Public school libraries aren’t all that open – they do censor books about religion all the time. You can’t find an illustrated version of any bible stories on public school library shelves. Public school adminstrators will decry censorship of thoughts when it comes to gay penguins and yet they will practice censorship when it comes to religion (read: Christianity)

all the time.

Growing up in Yonkers and attending the Yonkers Public School system, we never had Christian-based books on our public school library shelves. We had Santa Claus and ‘be nice to a neighbor at “holiday” time’ books in our library. I never saw anything about Jesus or Mary or the angels in any of our books.

They can keep the gay penguin book – but Ms. Filyaw shouldn’t shove a line down our throats about the openness of her library that is patently not true.

For those of you (like me) who can’t believe that 2006 is quickly coming to a close, it is time for a reality check:

Thanksgiving is only 6 days away.

This Sunday is the 2nd Last Sunday in the Church Year.

Our Thanksgiving Eve service is this coming Wednesday @ 7:30P.

Advent begins on December 3rd.

And there are only 37 days till Christmas.

Have a happy Friday!!

Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s doctrine of a celibate priesthood yesterday. For Lutherans, this policy isn’t Scriptural. There is no mandate in in the Bible that orders that men serving in the role of priest must not be married and remain celibate.

The Vatican did open the door a little bit to consider allowing men who left the priesthood to get married to return to their priestly status.

What this issue raises in regards of celibacy for Roman priests is the difference between a Scriptural mandate and church tradition. The Roman Catholic Church relies heavily on church traditions in determining the direction of their doctrine. In a sense, tradition is something that the church has done for a long while. For the RCC, these traditions are central to their church and their faith. Hence, the priesthood – which has been celibate for centuries – will remain a non-married priesthood because it is part of the tradition of the church.

Us Lutherans do hold fast to some traditions in the church, but they aren’t supposed to direct our doctrine, which comes from Holy Scripture.

So why then did Jerusalem get sacked by the Romans in 70 AD?

Evangelical Christians have become the biggest supporters of the state of Israel because they contend that biblical mandates to support the country force Christians to back the Israeli government. This morning, the NY Times fronts this story, giving the impression that Christians are standing firm to back Israel because it will make Jesus come back faster.

Ugh.

To put it simply – when Christian leaders run around screaming at the top of their lungs that Christians must support the nation of Israel because the Bible says so, one can only say that they are intentionally misinterpreting Holy Scripture. These evangelical Protestant leaders always point to Revelation or other prophetic writings to prove a case that in order for Jesus to return, there needs to be a nation that rejects Him situated on the site of biblical Judah.

These evangelical Protestants get all hot and heavy and pour millions of dollars into building up Israel but pour nothing into doing the work of the Kingdom in Israel, namely evangelism to those who reject Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They blindly believe that faith in God means nothing when it comes to our Jewish brothers and sisters because they are God’s people and for that alone, they will be saved.

Again, biblical hogwash.

They take words from Scripture and interpret them so literally – when they want to, that is – they fail to see the grace and mercy of God found in Scripture. Evangelical Protestants read prophetic writings and contend that Israel has to be in place before God returns, but also that some great alliance must be made between Israel’s “enemies” in Russia and China and they have to sweep down to destroy Israel and that alone will cause Jesus to return … but not to return-return: only to start some convoluted 1000 year period when all believers will be raptured up into heaven and the people who are left will somehow have to fight it out with the forces of the antichrist.

Please. This is a bad Hollywood screenplay and has very little to do with Holy Scripture.

Just ask one of these evangelicals about the importance of the Lord’s Supper – they don’t see it as very important. The meal is a memorial meal and means little to the life of the Christian, they contend. But if one reads Scripture, when our Lord Jesus tells us to “do this in remembrance of Me,” He tells His disciples that the bread is His body and the wine is His blood and that this is all done for the forgiveness of sins. They won’t take the words of Jesus Christ, their Lord and Savior, very seriously, but they will take the prophetic writing of Saint John in Revelation with seven-headed beasts and candle stands as gospel.

Please. Cling to the cross of Christ instead to these wanna-be charlatans.

Some of our Christian leaders do give us a bad a name. They say things that are sometimes outlandish. They promote ideas that make little sense. But they pound their bibles and scream at the top of their lungs and sadly, people listen.

Trust in the Lord. Pray for the strengthening of faith in your life and those believers throughout the world. Pray for those who reject Christ so they may come to faith in Him. Pray for the church catholic that its teachings will return to the freedom found in Christ – for He paid for the sins of the world, only Him, and that faith in Him alone will bring eternal life.

To be honest, I don’t know what is wrong with the blog. For some reason, the right panel (with blog links) is below the posts on this page. I can’t figure it out.

Maybe one day it will correct itself.

Today was just one of those days.

My day started out fine – Morning Prayer, a couple of visits, and a stop at 7-Eleven for a cup of coffee before heading over to the Fed Ex Kinkos store on Route 17. I had to return something and the company sent a pre-paid FedEx box. Now, I should say: Kinkos and Anthony don’t mix. It doesn’t matter whenever I have to use a Kinkos, I always end up having trouble.

One time, they charged me double for an order.

Another time, when I shipped a box of books through them, they forgot to give the box to the FedEx driver.

And finally, whether it has been Indiana or New Jersey or New York, I have never gotten along with any worker at Kinkos.

Today, I had to drop a box off. All I needed to do was to hand the box to the attendant. Yes, they would have to enter it into the computer, but no money had to change hands.

Little did I know that the Kinkos on Route 17 had no one who understood that people don’t have all day to stand on line. The man standing behind me cursed the store and walked out. Another woman, who also had to just drop something off, started talking about just how bad this store was. And to make matters worse, most of the the people behind the counter were only taking printing and copying orders.

For us schlubs waiting to ship something, we had to wait … and wait … and wait.

Aaaahh!

The person taking shipments was trying to talk to a woman about an international shipment. The woman didn’t have an address. How the heck are they supposed to ship something without an address? But I have a bigger question: why did it take so long to tell her that without an address, we can’t ship it? It took me sentence.

I ended up walking out.

Then, of course, as I exit the shopping center and go back onto Route 17, traffic backed up from the Parkway exit — which just so happened to be about 100 yards south of where I tried to get back onto Route 17. This back up caused the other lanes to slow down to a crawl for no particular reason.

A short 30 minute trip turned into an hour and a half.

And for the rest of the day, my stress level has been at peak levels. I’ve tried to calm down by writing some email, but it all hasn’t worked. I am going back to the parsonage and making some coffee…

The following is a media release sent out by the LCMS offices this past weekend:By Paula Schlueter Ross

If you’ve ever wanted to help others — especially those whose lives have been changed drastically by Hurricane Katrina — now is the time, says Rev. Glenn Merritt, disaster response director with LCMS World Relief/Human Care.

“I’m standing here 14 months [after the hurricane] in nothing but ruins,” said Merritt, speaking to LCMSNews from a work site in Chalmette, La., just outside New Orleans.

“The opportunity is here to do real, heart-to-heart ministry with the people of New Orleans who are hurting so desperately,” he said.

Volunteers can help, Merritt added, “by sharing the love of Christ and the wonderful Gospel of peace and joy, while at the same time helping to rebuild their homes and lives.”

Those who want to get involved in cleanup and rebuilding efforts don’t have to worry about accommodations, he says. Camp Restore — which can house 240 people at a time — opened last month at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and School in New Orleans East.

The Prince of Peace facilities — also damaged in the storm — have been repaired and renovated for use by hurricane cleanup volunteers.

“This is a top-of-the-line volunteer camp and we’re ready to go,” Merritt said. “We just need the people.”

The camp, open since Oct. 1, is a project of the LCMS Southern District, with funding and equipment provided by LCMS World Relief/Human Care and Orphan Grain Train. Laborers For Christ is providing on-site management for the camp, escorting volunteers to work sites and directing and overseeing repairs.

“This is a major cooperative effort to bring the maximum capacity of LCMS partners to serve LCMS congregations, their members, and their communities,” said Rev. Matthew Harrison, executive director of LCMS World Relief/Human Care. Acknowledging that “many more volunteers are needed in the South,” Harrison described the new camp as “a milestone in our ability to reach out to hurting people.”

Camp Restore offers dormitory-style housing, including showers and a dining hall, plus 18 RV spaces with electric, water, and sewer hookups. A 45-foot truck donated by Tyson Foods was converted by Orphan Grain Train and LCMS World Relief/Human Care into a commercial-grade mobile kitchen that can provide meals for more than 300 people a day.

The camp also has an on-site chaplain, Rev. Ed Brashier, and offers regular Bible studies and worship services.

Mike Herring, a member of Peace Lutheran Church in Waverly, Neb., was among the first volunteers to stay at Camp Restore. Herring described his accommodations there as “outstanding” and much better than he expected.

The food was so good, he said, that most of his 10-member group joked that they might have gained weight during their stay, even though they were putting in full days ripping out wet carpeting, cleaning debris from yards, replacing drywall, and painting.

Herring said a few of the area’s residents had repaired their homes and moved back in, but most had not. Probably one home per block was restored, he said. Many others sit vacant, overgrown with weeds and littered with debris.

Dan Baker, vice president with the Lutheran Church Extension Fund and director of Laborers For Christ (LFC), acknowledged there’s no shortage of work. Projects include several LCMS church buildings and a “backlog” of some 300 homes of members.

Only about 7 percent of the area’s residents have returned to their homes, according to LCMS Southern District President Kurtis Schultz. The new camp, Schultz said, “offers a unique opportunity for our brothers and sisters in Christ to witness in word and deed to the life we share in Jesus Christ to those who are in critical need.”

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