"Look down and see the beggars at your feet. Look down and show some mercy if you can. Look down and see the sweepings of the street. Look down, look down upon your fellow man!" Thus reads the text of a song from the most popular work of musical theater in history: Les Miserables. In the musical version of the classic French novel by Victor Hugo this song shifts the scene to the squalid streets of Paris: 1832. It is sung by "the miserable ones," those from whom the novel and the musical takes its name.

The beggars, the poor, the dregs of society sing to the upper crust. "Look down," they cry. "See our misery." Theirs is a cry as old as human history and as fresh as today's headlines. The world has always been filled with "the miserable ones," "the wretched of the earth," crying out for me…

William Willimon, dean of the chapel at Duke University, questions: Don't you find it interesting that when the great Lord, the Creator of the universe, t…

The message of Christmas is that God intrudes upon the weak and the vulnerable, and this is precisely the message that we so often miss. God does not come to that part of us that swaggers through life, confident in our self sufficiency. God leaves his treasure in the broken fragmented places of our life. God comes to us in those rare moments when we are able to transcend our own selfishness long enough to really care about another human being.

On the…

Perhaps we need Santa at Christmas to help us be merry and joyous because we have a flawed understanding of Jesus. From today's gospel text we learn that the first reaction to Jesus' presence on earth, of God-in-our-midst, was joy. Joy so tremendous, joy so utterly overwhelming that it must somehow escape the bounds of earth itself and jump towards the heavens.

In John Ortberg's wonderful book The Lif…

According to the US Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year...Male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeer, howe…

A man in the hospital is being treated for cancer. He is estranged from the Church. He has this long list of things he can name for you in his indictment. He doesn't like the Church in its present institutional form. But he is in the hospital. One day a priest walks into his room. He didn't invite him in, he just walked in. The priest asked him, "Do you want to be anointed…

In 1994, two Americans answered an invitation from the Russian Department of Education to teach morals and ethics (based on biblical principles) in the public schools. They were invited to teach at prisons, businesses, the fire and police departments and a large orphanage. About 100 boys and girls who had been abandoned, abused, and left in the care of a government run program were in the orphanage. They related the following story in their own words:

It was nearing the holiday season and it was time for our orphans to hear, for the first time, the traditional story of Christmas. We told them about Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem. Finding no room in the inn, the couple went to a stable, where the baby Jesus was born and placed in a manger. Throughout the story, the children and orph…

Scientists tell us that there is a most amazing, and thus-far inexplicable, phenomenon called "quantum entanglement." If two particles of energy are kept in close proximity to each other for a long time, they form a relationship, a kind of bond, that defies the imagination. The connection between these two particles is so strong that if you take one particle to a laboratory in Los Angeles and remove the other one to a lab in New York City, whatever you do to the particle in L.A. will instantly happen to the one in New York, too. Einstein…

There's a wonderful story about a six-year-old girl who got a brand new Bible at Sunday school. She proudly walked into the Worship service with the Bible tucked under her arm. She sat down with her fam…

Pastor William Carter said that on his Christmas vacation during his first year in college, he had become an expert on the birds and the bees. Biology was his major, and after a semester in the freshman class, he was certain that he knew more biology than most adults did in his hometown ... including his minister. A few days before Christmas, he stopped in to see his minister, who received him warmly and asked how he had fared in his first semester. “Okay,” he replied, avoiding the subject of his mediocre grades. But then he told his pastor, "I’ve come home with some questions.”…

Jane Adams was only seven years old when she visited a shabby street in a nearby town, and seeing ragged children there, announced that she wanted to build a big house so poor children would have a place to play. As a young adult, Jane and a friend visited Toynbee Hall in London, where they saw educated people helping the poor by living among them. She and her friend returned to Chicago, restored an old mansion, and moved in. There they cared for children of working mo…

One of my all time favorite Christmas hymns is "O Little Town of Bethlehem." It has been around since 1868. It is packed with emotion, a song about the Christ Child, born to Mary, a song filled with the creative power of God intervening in history with the gift of a savior. It's a story where the divine and the human come together in an amazing but humble way. 

What might surprise you is how this great hymn came to be. It was written by Phillips Brooks, Episcopal priest. Brooks was serving the Holy Trinity Church in the City of Brotherly Love (Philadelphia, PA). He had just returned from a trip to The Holy Land which inspired him to write the words. "When he returned to America he still ha…

No season of the year sings as well as Christmas. This seems to be true whether one is a saint or a sinner. The world about us has occasional song fests for patriotic days or school homecoming celebrations, but those songs are sung by selected groups in isolated places. Only at the Christmas season does the majority of the population choose to s…

Theodor was an artist of sorts. He drew cartoons for a living but he wasn't getting anywhere. So, he decided to try his hand at writing and illustrating children's books. After twenty-seven rejections of his book, "A Story No One Can Beat," he was ready to give up. On his way home to burn his manuscript, Theodor ran into an …

In his book Reaching for the Invisible God, Philip Yancey tells about a surgeon friend of his who performs delicate surgery to rebuild the human hand after a severe injury. Whenever he gets a call that there has been an accident, the doctor knows that he will be staring into a microscope and doing delicate surgery for six hours. And this can happen at all hours of the day or night.

On one occasion, he was called at 3 o'clock in the morning. He was worried about being able to concentrate enough during the surgery so he hit upon a novel approach that helped him. He ca…

In a book titled Whispering the Lyrics, Dr. Tom Long takes us back to an ugly time in our own history:

"During the prime days of the struggle for racial integration in the South, black civil rights workers, 'freedom riders' they were called, would travel on buses from city to city, challenging segregationist laws. Sometimes they were greeted with violence; often they were arrested. In one town, a bus was halted by the police and the passengers booked and jailed. While they were there, the jailers did everything possible to make them miserable and to break their spirits. They tried to deprive them of sleep with noise and light during the nights. They intentionally over salted their food to m…

Every year the president of the United States meets with influential people. Leaders of other States. Together they discuss big things, things of import and influence. But perhaps these gr…

I am holding in my hands a copy of one of the world’s most revolutionary documents. In it are found these immortal words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. . .” Of course, that document, the Declaration of Independence, is the charter of the American Revolution. Though we have not yet lived up to it, it has been the vision that inspires us.

The only document I know that is more revolutionary is in our Bible. It is called the Magnificat and is found in Luke, chapter 1, verses 39 through 56.

Back before India won its independence, it was under British rule. Bishop William Temple of the Anglican Church warned his missionaries to India not to read the Magnificat in public. He feared that it would be so inflammatory that it might start a revolution!

Th…

On January 23, 1909, a small invention played a crucial role in the lives of 1500 people. The New York-bound ocean liner the "Florida" rammed into the "Republic." Jack Binns, the Republic's new wireless radio man, reassembled his contraption which had been destroyed in the collision. He sent out distress calls for the next 12 hours until the crew and passengers were rescued in the dawn light of Sunday morning. Only a few died.

Jack Binns became a national hero. He was given a ticker tape parade. Songs were written about him. He even testified before congress on the importance of regulating wireless technology on all ships. Congress listened politely but ignored his message. Binn gave up his quest, accepted no profit from his celebrity, and went back home to England to await reassignment. …

Sam Levenson tells a wonderful story about the birth of his first child. The first night home the baby would not stop crying. His wife frantically flipped through the pages of Dr. Spock to find out why babies cry and what to do about it. Since Spock's book is rather long, the baby cried a long time. Grandma was in the house, but since she had not read the books on child re…

It is said that Henry David Thoreau once spent a whole day in Walden Pond up to his neck in the water. His idea was to see and experience the world as a frog sees it. But Thoreau did not become a frog!

"Sesame Street" is closer to the Christmas stor…

Elizabeth and Mary both were selected to give birth to these very special babies because of their faith in God. They did not have affluent homes or great educational advantages. All they had was simple faith. And that's important. Happy families don't just happen. They are part of a package.

Some of you young people may complain that your parents expect too much from you. They have too man…

A young boy complained to his father that most of the church hymns were boring and old-fashioned, with tiresome words that meant little to his generation. His father challenged him with these words: "If you think you can write better hymns, why don't you?"

The boy accepted the challenge, went to his room, and wrote his first hymn. The year was 1690, and the young man was Isaac Watts. Among his 350 hymns are "Joy to the World," "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," "I Sing the Almighty Power of God," and many other classics.

HERE'S ANOTHER VE…

How St. Francis, Walking One Day with Brother Leo, Explained to Him What Things Are Perfect Joy. 

One day in winter, as St. Francis was going with Brother Leo from Perugia to St. Mary of the Angels, and was suffering greatly from the cold, he called to Brother Leo, who was walking on before him, and said to him: "Brother Leo, if it were to please God that the Friars Minor should give, in all lands, a great example of holiness and edification, write down, and note carefully, that this would not be perfect joy."

A little further on, St. Francis called to him a second time: "O Brother Leo, if the Friars Minor were to make the lame to walk, if they should make straight the crooked, chase away demons, give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, and, what is even a far gr…

Blessed are they who find Christmas in the age-old story of a babe born in Bethlehem. To them a little child will always mean hope and promise to a troubled world.

Blessed are they who find Christmas in the Christmas star. Their lives may ever reflect its beauty and light.

Blessed are they who f…

Listen for a moment, to the story of one of the most dramatic victories we Christians know anything about.

The night Jesus was born angels came to shepherds near Bethlehem, and one said, "I bring you good news of a great joy." That was a happy greeting.

But a deep, dark valley of sorrow lay between that salutation and the joy it promised. For the new-born Child, trials and sufferings began almost immediately. When he was just a baby a jealous king tried to kill him. When he grew up the people at Nazareth threw him out of their city. He became a wandering teach…

Dr. Yoshiro Ishida is an international church leader in the Lutheran Church. He began his service to the church as a pastor in his church in Japan. He was spotted as a very promising young man and the church arranged for him to attend graduate school in the United States. He returned to Japan as a professor in the theological seminary.

After these years of service in Japan, Dr. Ishida was called to serve at the headquarters of the Lutheran World Federation in Geneva, Switzerland. He gave dedicated service to the global church in Geneva in a variety of positions. He was next called to head up a new "Institute of Global Mission" in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Ishida and his American-born wife, therefore, moved to Chicago. Just a year ago he was called again, now almost at retirement age, to come…

There was a tightrope walker, who did incredible aerial feats. All over Paris, he would do tightrope acts at tremendously scary heights. Then he had succeeding acts; he would do it blindfolded, then he would go across the tightrope, blindfolded, pushing a wheelbarrow. An American promoter read about this in the papers and wrote a letter to the tightrope walker, saying, "Tightrope, I don't believe you can do it, but I'm willing to make you an offer. For a very substantial sum of money, besides all your transportation fees, I would like to …

I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows;
I believe that somewhere in the darkest night, a candle glows;
I believe for ever…

I ran across a beautiful story recently about a woman named Rosemary who works in the Alzheimer’s Unit of a nursing home. Rosemary and a colleague named Arlene brought the residents of the home together one Good Friday afternoon to view Franco Zeffirelli’s acclaimed production Jesus of Nazareth. They wondered whether these elderly Alzheimer’s patients would even know what was going on, but they thought it might be worth the effort.

When they finally …

After a service of ordination to the Christian ministry, a sad-faced woman came up to the newly-ordained pastor and said, "It's a grand thing you are doing as a young man - giving up the joys of life to serve the Lord." That woman's attitude reflects a commonly held belief that to be serious about our faith means that we expect all joy to be taken out of living. For many, Christianity appears to be a depressing faith, with unwelcome disciplines, that cramps our lifestyle and crushes our spirits.

In one Doonesbury cartoon, an officer is standing by the bedside of a Navy sailor…

In his autobiography, actor Alec Guinness tells a story that might keep every pastor and church school teacher awake at night. He was a teenager and it was the morning of his confirmation. The classes were finished. The students' heads had been filled full of Bible stories and theological doctrines. Guinness says HolyTrinityChurch in Eastbourne was crammed with confirmation candidates, their parents, friends, schoolteachers, and sponsors. At the appropriate moment, he notes, "The girls, mostly in grey uniforms, filed up to kneel at the Bishop's left hand and the boys, in blue serge, to his right. I remember white episcopal hands and shaggy black eyebrows. A pale, greenish light filtere…

Though centuries old, Portia's words to Shylock still speak with the eloquence of God, "The quality of mercy is not strained, i…

In her novel Come and Go, Molly Snow, Mary Ann Taylor-Hall gives an account of Carrie attempting to come to grips with the loss of her eight-year-old daughter, Molly Snow. Carrie is a fiddler, but in the wake of this tragic loss she says, "The music doesn't rise up in me right now." In the months that followed, Carrie listens to homespun wisdom and begins the first steps of coming to grips with the absence of Molly Snow and the presence of a deep, dull ache which had taken her place. At one point Carrie remarks,…

There is a church in Columbia, SC near a seminary which has one of those bulletin boards out front to list service times, special events, sermon subjects, and so on. For several years there was one other thing on …

Markus Barth reminds us that "early Christian congregations were singing, jubilant, exulting assemblies" like modern-day congregations in parts of Africa. My friend Gerald Stephens writes me from the Congo that he has "never seen so much unmitigated joy during worship." Gerald goes on:

"I've been in evangelical churches where folks were well-trained to 'act' joyous...But here, it's no act. It's not Pentecostal ecstasy either, but a kind of reasoned joy. And, probably the most joyous times are t…

Here is the infamous bit from Monty Pythons "Life of Brian." All great humor must have one essential element: Truth. This bit certainly has that. Jesus' words when misunderstood has lead to some pretty fantastic conclusions. And so, this is dedicated to all those knuckle headed interpretations throughout the years. There are two main characters in the bit who are called Trouble and Bignose. They are at the back of the crowd when Jesus is…

Some while ago three other drivers and I all arrived at a Four Way Stop intersection at virtually the same moment. Although altogether too many drivers seem unaware of this fact, the rule at Four Way Stops is that drivers take turns in a clockwise fashion or according to whoever got to the intersection first. In this case, the four of us arrived simultaneously and so there was no logical starting point for even a clockwise rotation. What happened instead is that each of the four of us was making hand gestures to encour…

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases;·it wil…

In 2000 a homeless man by the name of William Wallace Brown, Jr. was buried in the graveyard of the prestigious St. John's Episcopal Church, across from the White House. This would not be unusual except that St. John's is called the "church of presidents." Since 1808, the time of the James Madison presidency, nearly every U.S. leader has worshiped there. So how is it, that this street bum was laid to rest in a prominent burial garden? It all began one Sunday morning when the homeless man spotted George H. W. Bush entering the church and asked the president to pray for him. Bush looked…

"I saw them eating and I knew who they were." That saying, or some version of it, is well-known now. And it certainly describes the Pharisees whom we encounter in Luke 15:1-2. Jesus was welcoming the very folks whom the religious establishment had written off. Worse, he was at table with them, which was an intimate act of fellowship that implied a kind of personal bond and connection. So we'…

Let us suppose that God's resources are so much beyond what we can imagine that he can produce a situation in which we can honestly say, "I see now that even the butchery of six million Jews doesn't matter. This …

Christmas was fast approaching when my good friend Dawn reminded her eight-year-old son Ken that he would s…

When you think about the way a formal state visit is conducted at the White House, it probably conjures up images of a military band and an honor guard flanking the driveway. As the row of black limousines arrive, trumpets blare and flags flutter and everything is formally festive. The President greets his distinguished guests and grandly escorts them down the plush red carpet into the…

Few authors have shared the good news of the Christian gospel as compellingly as C.S. Lewis in the Chronicles of Narnia. In one passage the characters Eustace, Jill and Aslan weep over the dead King Caspian.  After Aslan is wounded with a pierced paw and his blood splashes on the dead king the king is wonderfully r…

What exactly do you believe about Jesus? Some years ago, in my seminary days, our first course in Systematic Theology dealt with that question. Our professor described Jesus as "the proleptic, salvific, hidden appearance of the eschatological kingdom of God." Did you get that? Take notes; there might be a test at the end of this. "The proleptic, salvific, hidden appearance of the eschatological kingdom of God." On our way out of class that morning, with the words of our gospel in mind, we chuckled at the whole thing: "Jesus said to them, 'Who do YOU say that I am?' Simon Peter replied, 'You are the proleptic, salvific, hidden appearance of the eschat…

Years ago a ship on the Atlantic was in distress because its supply of fresh water had run out. The crew faced a horrible death from the thirst, and that with water all around them.

When hope was almost gone, they sighted a ship approaching them. At once they hoisted distress signals. But the only answer they got was "dip it up."

"Dip it up?" What heartless mockery, they must of thought to themselves. To dip up buckets of salt water!

They signaled again, but got the same answer. Finally in despair, they lowered a bucket. Imagine their amazement and joy when it turned out to be fresh, living water. …

Maybe the kettle takes longer to boil, and the ground isn't as soft as a chair.

Maybe the butter runs soft in the sun, and the cake seems to wilt in the air.

Maybe…

T.H. Huxley, an English biologist and anthropologist and advocate of Darwin's theory of evolution, was a well-known agnostic. He was with a group of men at a weekend house party. On Sunday morning, while most of them were preparing to g…