Ever Feel A Bit Discontented at Christmas? We Have Jesus but the World is Trying to Like...Take Over the Holiday?

             “Now is the winter of our discontent!”  So speaks Richard, Duke of Gloucester at the beginning of Shakespeare’s play, “Richard III”.   If I have ever read or seen Richard III, I remember nothing.  Except this line (and a quick online search for context...)  From a trailer or a commercial or something.  But it has popped for me, at least a variation of it, in describing this season as the “Christmas of our discontent.”

            Ours?  Implies “we”, so...who are we?  Us of the church.  But its Christmas, what is there to be discontented about?  

            It is summed up well in a couple of bumper stickers, "Gen X memes" for those of us of a certain age...  "Jesus is the Reason for the Season”.  It is a polite reminder, hinting that other "reasons" for Christmas are sneaking in.  More to the point, “Keep Christ in Christmas.”  I feel like it should be written like this: "Keep Christ in Christmas".  This has more clarity to it.  If "Christmas" were a company, Christ is the founder and somewhere along the way the greedy Board of Directors is trying to show him the door.  

            Imagine the innkeeper showing up at the stable at about 3 o’clock in the morning to show Mary, Joseph, and Jesus the door, something about extra "manger rent" or something...

            This discontent exists.  I have felt it personally.  Christmas getting hijacked, everyone wanting a piece of it.  There is something about Jesus in the manger, his parents standing close by, the shepherds and animals surrounding him, the angels gathered overhead in a glorious choir.  There is something in their song, “Glory to God in the Highest and on earth, peace among those with whom the Lord is well-pleased.”

            There is light in the midst of darkness.  There is quiet in the midst of noise.  There is hope in the midst of pointlessness.  There is peace in the midst of anarchy.  There is God in the midst of godlessness.  There is a gift in the midst of greediness.  The world, sinful and broken, has latched onto Christmas like nothing else in our faith.  I do not believe it is malicious appropriation so much as unrecognized desperation.

            It is HERE that I believe we should be focused with discontent.  The world is desperate for something they see Christmas providing.  If I am so tied up with the conviction that the world has hijacked 'my' Christmas, how easy is it for me to keep the world, ‘them’, at arm’s length?  Devote myself to shielding ‘the real thing’ from the excesses of the popular cultural?  

            When this is the season where the 'world', and the sinful, broken people who live in it, are closer to the truth of Jesus Christ than maybe any other time of the year?  

            Yes, there is a veneer of overhyped sparkle that seems to get thicker over the celebration of Christmas every year.  But this is also the time of deepest depression, of highest suicide rates, of disconsolation and disconnection.  A Christmas of Overhyped Sparkle does not touch the soul, it cannot provide answer to the sadness.  But we know the truth, the Christmas of Jesus, it does.  And the devil has worked wonders to keep us, the faithful, from truly seeing that.

            Let us not be content to let that stand.  This is the Christmas of our Year of Jubilee, of our celebration of the gifts of Christ.  Let us share the wealth that can not be measured in any earthly terms. 

            Besides, Christmas is God's Holiday for us.  Can the world really be expected to take it over?  Or is the real truth that Christmas will take over the world?  The Christmas of Christ.  Our Christmas.  The gift that we can offer to make it everybody's true Christmas.

Pastor pete

 

The Year of Jubilee Across the Covenants

         We are working through the life of Abraham in our Wednesday Night Bible Study.  To date, we are almost to the middle of the book of Genesis.  And there are connections.  Always connections.  Several times God has taken Abraham through the covenant promises that are between God and Abraham and Abraham’s descendants after him.

            Abraham will be the Father of multitudes, as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.  In other words, uncountable.  But there is also the promise of land.  But it was always God’s land, provided in the covenant.  Abraham is repeatedly listed as a sojourner in the land, until God gives the land to the people.  

            The land is indeed given to the people.  Continue through the Bible of Jesus, after the Torah-the Law of Moses-to the book of Joshua.  It begins with conquest but concludes with distribution of the land, tribe by tribe.  It is from that moment that have the Year of Jubilee.  In Joshua, God's gift of land is made real.  In the Jubilee, God’s gift of land is renewed.  Restored.  Reestablished.   

            Within the covenant promises made to Abraham, there is another to build on the promises of progeny and Promised Land.  It is that by Abraham, all the nations of the world will be blessed, will be restored to God.  This is the promise that is carried out in our Lord Jesus.  Jesus, who comes to us from the progeny and Promised Land of Abraham and as Son of God.   

            What was God's one select nation blows open to the whole world as Jesus fulfills the promises made to Abraham.  It is no longer the ‘line of Abraham’ but, in Jesus, all God's Children who are able to come back to Him.  It is no longer one little strip of land along the Mediterranean that is the ‘Promised Land’, but, in Jesus, the whole Earth, all of Creation, is God's gift to us.  

            So, the Year of Jubilee, which began as part of the covenant law of Moses, becomes something so much more.  Jubilee was for one people in one land.  But, in Jesus, Jubilee is for all people, living in all the land that is God's gift to us.  In this do we celebrate.    

Amen and thanks be to God.  We hope to see you Sunday.

Peace,

Pastor pete

The Year of Jubilee: God's Call for A New Age.

Dear Fellow Church Members,                      

         Our passages for Sunday are from Leviticus 25 and 2 Timothy 1.  From Leviticus, here are verses 25-28:

 ²⁵ “If anyone of your kin falls into difficulty and sells a piece of property, then the next of kin shall come and redeem what the relative has sold. ²⁶ If the person has no one to redeem it but then prospers and finds sufficient means to do so, ²⁷ the years since its sale shall be computed and the difference refunded to the person to whom it was sold, and the property shall be returned. ²⁸ But if there are not sufficient means to recover it, what was sold shall remain with the purchaser until the year of Jubilee; in the Jubilee it shall be released, and the property shall be returned.

 And from 2 Timothy 1, from our passage a few weeks ago, verses 3-6:

 ³ I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. ⁴ Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. ⁵ I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. ⁶ For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands, 

          This Sunday begins for us a Year of Jubilee.  We take this from the year of Jubilee set in the Law of Moses.  In Leviticus 25, a legal reset was established that every fifty years the people returned to the land God had given to them.  There were already Sabbath years, every seventh year, as a year of rest for the land to lie fallow.  But after seven sets of seven years, there comes the fiftieth, a year of rest AND reset.

          God gives the Promised Land to His people.  It will be given tribe by tribe, family by family-each on their own piece of God's land (the tribal survey is described at the end of the book of Joshua).  The land can be bought, sold, traded, moved about, but with the provision that every fifty years, everybody returns to their portion of God's gift.  Read the Book of Ruth in light of the verses given from Lev. 25 above, do you see a Year of Jubilee in action.

          In 2 Timothy, Paul calls upon Timothy, the third generation of believer, as his successor in ministry.  In Jesus, the promise of Jubilee, God's grace to us forever, finds fulfillment in the generations of Timothy, foreshadowing the generations coming down to us.   

          That is at the heart of Sunday’s kickoff of a year of Jubilee for this church.  Recognizing the generations that have built this church are not only its legacy, but are, as the people of Israel were, called back to the gift of God’s church.  The generations that have built this church are the foundation not only for their families, but of the new families who will find God’s Heart among us in the future.    

          It is time to renew, to rekindle, to step into God’s light once again.  Jesus’ message of hope is needed now more than ever.  This Sunday, we gather together to carry that light boldly forward into a Jubilee of FPC Merchantville’s ministry.  Come and join us.

 

Joyfully,

Pastor Peter

Take It, Especially the Big Day, to the Lord in Prayer

 Our passage for Sunday is Psalm 17: 1-9,

 ¹ Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry; give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit. ² From you let my vindication come; let your eyes see the right.

³ If you try my heart, if you visit me by night, if you test me, you will find no wickedness in me; my mouth does not transgress.
⁴ As for what others do, by the word of your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent. ⁵ My steps have held fast to your paths; my feet have not slipped.

⁶ I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God; incline your ear to me; hear my words. ⁷ Wondrously show your steadfast love, O savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand.

⁸ Guard me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings, ⁹ from the wicked who despoil me, my deadly enemies who surround me.

          It is a prayer of David.  It is not the entire psalm but carries us through the first ‘stanza’ (as best we can tell that the Psalms have 'stanzas').  We do not have context for this prayer, unlike Psalm 3.  Psalm 3 marks David's plea to the Lord when fleeing from Absalom.  But even without context, we have David's heart open to us. 

          It is a psalm of preparation.  David is preparing for something and is coming before the Lord to clear the path.  He begins with “hear a just cause”.  

            But he recognizes a world of danger.  He concludes with “guard me…, hide me…from the wicked who despoil me, my deadly enemies who surround me.”  It may be a time of war for King David.  Or maybe David was simply looking around and seeing with clear eyes something that has not changed to our time.  That the wicked and deadly enemies continue to surround us.  Not a conspiracy against us, but random acts, muggings, carjackings, home invasions, violent moments that strike without rhyme or reason.  Bad people doing bad things.  It simply happens, despite all our precautions.  

And it is only one verse in the whole prayer, one piece of daily life.  It is side by side with David calling on God’s wondrous love, of laying open his own heart before the Lord that God will not find deception there.  Life in a sinful world consists of the good, the bad, and the ugly, and David lifts all in prayer.  

As I read these words as part of our lectionary passages, what struck me is that this is an uncomplicated, open and honest, direct prayer to God in advance of our Big Day.  David speaks of a ‘just cause’, something important to his heart and life.  I do not know if I would characterize a Sunday to Rekindle the Gifts of God as a ‘just cause’, but it is certainly a cause integral to our work in the Kingdom of God.

So that’s the ‘in’.  This prayer of David; one we speak 3000 years after David wrote it; a prayer integrated-by God’s inspiration-into the Songbook (the Book of Psalms) of the Bible of Jesus (our OT).  Words that speak from the heart, acknowledge the reality of a world of sin, and call for a world made better in the love and power of God.

This prayer was answered incarnately (in the flesh) a millennium later when David’s heir and descendant, our Lord Jesus, came to us.  In Him, it is a prayer that continues to be answered to this day.

 

Peace,

Pastor Pete

Heading into a Year of Jubilee for Our Church! Let Us Consider the Joy and the Possibilities...

The Promised Land was given to the chosen people by God.  Each family had their land.  The surveys and land grants make up the latter part of the book of Joshua.  These grants are forward looking.  In the bible of Jesus (our Old Testament), the ultimate promise of God’s work is prophesied in Micah 4:3-4:

“God shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their of fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the LORD of armies has spoken.”

In the Law of Moses, in Leviticus 25, this promise was remembered every fifty years.  Every fifty years was a year of Jubilee, a reset of God’s gift to God’s people.  Every fifty years, every family of God’s people returned to the land given them when God led the division of the Promised Land.  The law is even written that when someone ‘buys’ someone else’s place (agricultural land-cities had different rules), it is a proportional sale, for up to fifty years.  Because, in the Jubilee, faith trumps economics.

The gift of God to the people of God, the Land, was more important than the wealth a person might seek to accumulate in real estate.    

In other words, in the year of Jubilee, everything is restored.  It is a human version of God’s ultimate restoration of peace and perfection to God’s creation.  The case has been made (and I like it) that Jesus began His ministry in a year of Jubilee. 

Fast forward to here and now.  The Year of Jubilee is the year, for FPC Merchantville, of calling people home, back to their Lord and their family in Christ Jesus and their church.  It is a Year of Jubilee.  We are kicking off that Year with a Big Day.  

Sunday, November 16, 2025, leading into Christ the King Sunday and the Season of Advent, is the day we invite every member of this church family, every generation, to come breakfast and worship, to reacquaint and fellowship.  To begin a year of celebration and renewal.

Come and worship.  Come and see.  Join us for our Year of Jubilee.

Peace,

Pastor Pete

Loving Our Neighbors when They are Capital "S" Sinners, not simply generic, everyday and all-of-us Sinners...

Our passage for Sunday is Luke 19: 1-10,

19 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. ² A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³ He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. ⁴ So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. ⁵ When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” ⁶ So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. ⁷ All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” ⁸ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” ⁹ Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

The “good folks” watching Jesus (like His every move?) are not happy with Him.  “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner”, they said.  Jesus went to the house of Zacchaeus, not simply a tax collector, but the chief tax collector in the Jericho district.  So, not just a sinner but a Chief sinner?

The story of Zacchaeus is well known, especially if you were raised with the Sunday School song, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he…he climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see…”  We spoke Jesus' part, “Zacchaeus, come down…for we’re going to your house today…”

 It is a marvelous story of redemption, a new life in Christ Jesus; turning from a life of collaborating with the Romans and making restitution to the community.  But the watchers call him “sinner”.

In the New Testament, there are ‘s'inners’ and there are ‘S'inners’.  Zacchaeus is definitely Capital ‘S’.  Little ‘s’ sinners are everyone, as per Paul, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  It is a blessed reminder that Jesus has died for us all.  But then there is the ‘S’inner, Capital S.  Within the caste system of the time of Jesus, “Sinners” were the outcasts.

Outcasts were identified in last week's Scripture.  In Jesus’ parable, the self-righteous Pharisee prayed us a list of-who he is NOT-‘outcast’ Sinners; thieves, rogues, adulterers, and tax collectors.  The Sinners can be publicly identified, shamed, shunned, and cast out of polite society.  They are 'those people' who 'law (of Moses) abiding' folks will not cavort with.   

 The beauty of this system is that these Sinners, while still technically ‘neighbors’ who we have to love…because Jesus said so…can be under-loved…disliked…and pushed to the margins because of what they have done.  Have you heard the expression ‘love the sinner but hate the sin’?  Make it a Capital 'S' Sin and its permission to push them out.  Not in my spiritual neighborhood.  

 Jesus embraced the collaborator, the outcast, the Sinner, the tax collector.  Grace first, forgiveness first, love first.  Today, is this where we need 'all our strength' to love our neighbor?  Especially today's 'S'inners?  Love first, without screening or filtering 'in Jesus name.'  Want a look at Jesus' 'filtering system' for sin?  Check out his commentary on murder and adultery in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:21-32), see how that might apply to 'S'inners.  We are all ‘S’inners.  

We all need Jesus.  We who have Him are called to love our neighbors.  No filter, no screening, no casting out, just loving our neighbor, serving them with all our strength. 

Peace,

Pastor Pete

 

Loving My Neighbor...Okay Jesus...But Do I Have To Like Them Too?

Our passage for Sunday is Luke 18: 9-14,

9 He (Jesus) also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other, for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

This Sunday, we continue our sermon series on loving God and loving Neighbor with soul, mind, and strength.  We explore the cross-pollination of loving neighbor with all our mind.  We spoke of the mind already, in relation to loving God, which we call ‘prayer’.  In the work that I do, as a minister, looking to our neighbors, reaching out (my mind) from a place of believe (my soul), this work is generally referred to as ‘pastoral care’.  Being the ‘pastor’, we add that qualifier.  But while I might have specific training and focus, when it comes to our minds, to what we think and what we say, in terms of loving our neighbors, I believe we all come from a place of caring.

Jesus, in our passage today, tells us a parable of two men who went to the temple to pray.  One is very easy to care for.  There is need and there is brutal honesty as he prays desperately to heaven.  Even though he is a tax collector, a collaborator with the Roman overlords of the time, he is in need.  We can deal with all the stuff in regards to being a tax collector at another time.  Right now, he hurts, he's come to the Lord, and we are the Lord’s people who might come to a place like this to respond, to provide caring.

And then there is the other guy.

He’s a Pharisee.  And what a tagline he has, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”  What Jesus calls a man exalting himself is what might better be known as arrogance.  There are a lot of people in life like that.  Neighbors…yes, everyone is.  Someone to be loved…Jesus says so…  Likeable?  Well…maybe not…  Are these people in need?  Yah, but they don’t usually know it.

If we were to be brutally honest and open with the Lord as we seek to love God with all our mind, can you imagine praying, “Lord, you want me to love this one??”

To love our neighbor does not mean we are welcome mats to be walked all over.  God is love, and that is the measure we are called to follow.  But nobody ever walked over God, not as our Father in the Old Testament, not as Jesus in the New.  In fact, God- as Father and as Son-provides many practical examples of how we could express care even for the self-exultant. 

So we have some fun things to talk about.

 

Peace,

Pastor Peter