Author: lakewooducc

Last year at Christmas time I was in the throes of being treated forbreast cancer.  I had two surgeries in December.  

There was a a lot of drama about how we were going to celebrate Christmas as a family.  I did not want to host, for obvious reasons.  Our daughter was in the process of moving from Naples to St. Pete.  She did not want to host.  So we went to our son Malcolm and fiancé Samantha’s house in Sarasota.

Some weeks before the holiday, I let everyone know that I was not getting any Christmas gifts for anyone except for the two grandsons, aged 3 and 5 at the time.  This ended up giving some others permission not to give gifts.  So, instead of the usual piles of presents under the tree, there were a few gifts.  We had a full day of fun, sitting around the fire, chasing the children in the yard, eating lots of different foods, listening to music,  spending time together.  it was very festive.  Really, one of the best Christmas’s ever!

As this Christmas rolls around, one of the kids asked me, are we doing gifts again this year or not?  I was told it was more fun last year without all the presents.  So, I said, it’s up to you.  I’ll just do gifts for the kids again.  The rest can do as you wish.  

This was a little controversial at first, but it is catching on.  Less stress.  More fun.  Less financial burden in tight times.  

“You have scattered the proud in their conceit, 

you have deposed the mighty from their thrones

and raised the lowly to high places.

You have filled the hungry with good things,

while you have sent the rich away empty.

These are the drastic sweeping changes promised at Christmas.  It isn’t going to happen if we keep doing everything the same way all the time.  Why not start with with making a change in how you celebrate this glorious holy day of rebellion!  We don’t have to always to it the same way. 

Prayer:  This season is a celebration of newness.  A new baby!  A new dream for the world!  Maybe we can honor this newness by starting some new traditions for the holiday season.  Amen.

This devotion was prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL.

There is a tradition that the angel Gabriel approached other women before he finally got a ‘YES!’ from Mary of Nazareth.  We can imagine the angel going to a young woman in one town and being turned way.  We can imagine Gabriel going to someone in another village and being ignored.  Indigestion, maybe?  Finally, Gabriel is sent to Mary of Nazareth and she accedes to God’s plan.  Perhaps to Gabriel’s great relief.  He can move on to another assignment?

We can imagine that over these speculative visits, Gabriel hones his pitch.  Maybe he started with something like, Has God got a plan for you!  Or, This is YOUR lucky day!  Maybe he tried, Brace yourself, it’s going to be a wild ride!  What we finally get is something like:  Rejoice, highly favored one!  God is with you!  Blessed are you among women!  It’s a lot of pious flattery, yes.  Mary is still deeply troubled, so Gabriel goes on, Don’t be afraid, Mary.  

Mary knows that God has amazing plans and dreams to bless humanity.  She knows this from hearing the reading of the Hebrew scriptures and the promises of peace and plenty.  She knows of God’s commitment to justice.  And she knows from scripture that God’s plans and dreams come to fruition when human beings of faith submit themselves to God’s will and God’s intentions.  Abraham and Sarah had to leave home and seek out a new land.  Moses had to go back to Egypt to free the slaves.  

Mary knows her people are living in a time of great oppression by the Roman Empire.  And God desires their freedom.  So when the angel comes, she is reticent at first but she agrees to be an agent of God’s intentions.  

God has hopes and dreams for this world.  We celebrate hope, peace, joy and love this precious season.  We celebrate new birth.  And the promise of liberation.  But people in today’s world are still needed to say yes to giving their lives to God’s dreams and intentions.  People are still needed to stand up to the rich and the powerful leaders who abuse the poor.  Someone still needs to fill the hungry with good things.  

Is that someone one you?  Me?  Or is someone else going to do it?

Prayer:  In our quiet moments this advent season, may we be attentive to how we are needed to make the hopes and dreams of God a reality.  We may even hear a brush of angel’s wings!  Amen.

This devotion was prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL.

Children love to play with magnifying glasses.  First they see all the little details and intricacies of things.  Then they realize they can make fire with a magnifying glass and the magnifying glass becomes even more enchanting and alluring.  

Now, for me, the magnifying glass is a necessity.  It helps me to read small print and see small things that my aging eyes can no longer distinguish.  So, I keep one on my desk at all times.  One day a few years ago, I smelled a smokey odor at home.  I went to my desk, wooden, and the magnifying glass was on the desk along with some random papers.  And the sun was coming through the window, and through the magnifying glass, and the paper on the desk and the wood beneath had begun to smolder!!!  Good thing someone was home or the house might have burned down!  The glass is now kept in a drawer.  

Magnifying is powerful!

The Magnificat begins with Mary magnifying God: “My soul doth magnify the Lord.”  This is translated as praising God, exalting God, proclaiming the greatness of God.  I like the word ‘magnify.’  In response to God’s love, Mary makes God bigger.  In her life, she reveals God in a way that makes God more clearly seen and understood.  With her life, with her assent to the plan to birth Jesus, she makes God bigger and clearer for the world to see.  She evidences God’s power and love.

And this is what we are here to do.  Not just appreciate that Mary was a faithful soul with a special job.  Not just praise Mary for magnifying God.  But we are here to magnify God.  To make God , Divine Love, bigger and clearer for the world to see.  We are here to make God’s love and justice plain.  Easily seen and understood by the world.

Prayer:  This season, may we be those lenses that make the love of God displayed in Mary and Jesus, clear and powerful in our world today.  Amen.

This devotion was prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL.

The Magificat begins with an enormous burst of exuberant praise!  A deep throated belly laugh of joy. An eruption of unrestrained gratitude and glee.    God has made me, a nobody, a somebody, in a divine scheme that reshapes reality for ALL nobodies.  And I will be known forever until the end of time because of what God has done for those at the bottom. 

Then Mary goes on to deliver an impassioned, stunning manifesto of liberation.  Turning reality on its head.  Overturning all power arrangements and hierarchies. This is out and out rebellion!

Yet think of the images we have of the Virgin Mary.  The mother of the baby Jesus.  She is somewhat two dimensional.  Sedate.  Passive.  Pensive.  Calm. Demure.  Looking into the face of her new baby Jesus.  Looking heavenward.  Looking at us in a dolorous fashion.  Millions of depictions of Mary.  The template for calm and repose.

But I find myself wondering where is the rebel Mary?  Where are the images of the revolutionary Mary?  The Che Guevara Mary?  Where is the liberator Mary?  Where is the Mary completely overwhelmed with exuberance and joy?  Where is the Mary dancing with abandon with the peasants?  Feasting in the new reality of justice?  The only overwhelming emotion that we allow Mary is sadness and grief over the death of her son.  The Pieta Mary.  

I’m wondering if people who are truly filled with exuberant joy are just too hard to, well, control.  

Prayer:  May we let ourselves be so filled with gratitude and joy, wonder and delight, that we see the stunningly magnificent power of Divine Love working in our lives to create heaven on earth.  Amen.

This devotion was prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL.

I think in general, people like to congregation with people who are like them.  Maybe the people have something fundamental in common like ethnicity.  Or maybe they have similar thoughts about something, like politics.  Or maybe they enjoy a similar activity, like surfing.  

I’m wondering if we even notice one of the main things that keeps us ‘grouped up’ and that is income or wealth.  Class.  Often very rich people are at similar events, are together for doing activities, eat at similar restaurants.  Shop together at high end stores.  A billionaire is probably not dipping into Walgreens for a pack of smokes.  

And the rest of us ‘commoners’?  We’re kind of grouped together.  Day to day life. The grocery store.  The car line at school.  The doctor’s office.  The soccer game.  We tend to be around people who are similar from an economic standpoint.  Most of us don’t spend a lot of time socializing and hanging out in William’s Park.  Or at St. Vincent de Paul.  

In the Magnificat, there is the line, God has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.  It’s kind of an enigmatic phrase.  There are some varying translations, but still, it’s a little vague.  Are the people actually scattered?  No more grouping up with those who endorse your world view and your values?  Or are their thoughts scattered, their plans upended?

When I think of the phrase ‘scattered the proud’ a scene from the movie  Mary Poppins comes to mind.  At the beginning of the movie, the Banks family is looking for a nanny.  A bunch of officious looking prospects are waiting in a long line down the walkway, out the gate, and down the sidewalk in front of the house.  But once Mary Poppins has been interviewed, a big wind comes and the nannies waiting outside are blown away in the wind.  It is a great scene!  The nannies are scattered.

Christmas is meant to upend our neat plans, arrangements, ideas, and assumptions.  A baby.  Born in a stable.  Attended by kings and shepherds alike, upends the world.  So this advent season, maybe we can let ourselves be scattered – be blown about a bit, have some of our tidy thoughts and conclusions challenged, get a bit mixed up, maybe even with people we don’t usually mix with.  Nature scatters seeds to grow and perpetuate life.  Maybe a little scattering with will help us grow in new directions.  

Prayer:  This advent season, may we encounter new people, new circumstances, and new ideas, that challenge some of our assumptions.  May we grow in the love that was gifted to us in the birth of Jesus. Amen.

This devotion was prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL.