My Thoughts on the Recent Duck Dynasty Controversy

I have been intrigued by the recent controversy caused by Duck Commander, Phil Robertson’s comments on sinfulness. I must confess that I am a fan of the show, Duck Dynasty; I find it charming and entertaining. I'll also be honest and say that some of the things that are said and done on the show can make me a bit uncomfortable, but I know it’s entertainment and I do not turn to the Robertson clan...as nice and famous as they might be...for advice, wisdom, moral authority, and spiritual instruction, because quite frankly, that is not the show’s purpose. The purpose of the show is to entertain and make money for the A&E network and the Duck Commander brand.

The Bible tells us that none of us are righteous (Romans 3:9). The Bible also tells us that God loves the world so much that He sent Jesus to save the world and not condemn it (John 3:16-18). And then there’s this, “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). 

Sinners…all of us…people of faith and otherwise…we are all sinners. Some really good news is that even though we’re sinners, God doesn’t cast us out or throw us away; instead, He chooses to work in, with, for, and through us. God does this even in spite of us and our bent toward sinning. 

Something I have learned along the way is that God can work through our own sinfulness for the sake of His glory. I know the Lord has turned some of the muck of my life into something, and for that, I’m thankful! God has used my mistakes to keep me humble. God has used my mistakes to help me learn. God has used my mistakes to give me a witness, opportunity, and platform that declares God loves me in spite of myself. And God has used my mistakes to help me realize that He does indeed love me enough to save me when I deserve the exact opposite. 

I am watching what my friends on both sides of this Duck Dynasty issue are saying about this controversy. In my opinion, it isn’t a free speech issue, and it isn’t really an expression of faith issue. To me, this is a humanity issue! God doesn’t want anyone dehumanized; in fact, God embodied this in Jesus by becoming human Himself to show us the way to live and love in God’s world (Philippians 2:1-11, John 14:6). 

Phil Robertson, while speaking categorically about sin, took the bait from GQ and began categorizing sinfulness. In Matthew 23:13, Jesus took on the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who in their attempt to preserve and protect the Kingdom of God were blocking out the very ones who needed it most! Lest we forget, Jesus told us that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him, and He has charged us to go out and promote the Kingdom.

One of the tools of our enemy, the deceiver, is to cast believers in a poor light in order to discredit the entire lot. I’m not a fan of the comments made by Robertson, but I am a fan of his freedom to share them. I’m also no fan of the hysteria from both sides of the debate. If we are going to combat the techniques of the evil one, and point others to God, then love is the only useful tool in our arsenal. 

I have had a number of Facebook friends invite me to either join in the boycott of Duck Dynasty or to “Stand with Phil”. After some thought, I have decided to do neither, but to stand with Christ who tells us not to judge or condemn or risk the same treatment in kind (Luke 6:37). I want to love God and love others, regardless what “category” they might belong. After all, this is what I want and need at the core of my being, and if the Golden Rule has taught me anything, I need to treat others according to the way I want to be treated (Matthew 7:12).

Remember, God’s love came to us in Christ in the midst of our darkness and sinfulness. Through His love, God decided to save us. May we resist the temptation to dehumanize others in their sinfulness – specifically the categories with which we don’t agree or like – as we remember that God has saved us from our own. And just as Jesus came for all people, may we love others as Jesus has taught us, so everyone can know of the love and grace of God Almighty!

Merry Christmas,

Mark

A Christmas Miracle!

During our stewardship campaign in the month of October, we adopted the Liberdade United Methodist Church for our Miracles for Mozambique outreach project. Throughout the campaign, we asked people in our church and community to help provide gifts of Bibles and hymnals to the church. We set a goal of $200, which we estimated would purchase approximately 200 Bibles and hymnals. Thanks to the generosity of this wonderful congregation, over $2,700 was raised, shattering our goal, and increasing our miraculous outreach to Mozambique!

Last week, I received an email message from Rev. Sambo from Liberdade UMC about our gift. I want to share that note with you.

Dear Pastor Jordan,

Greetings from me and from Liberdade UMC. We are doing fine here and very grateful for working/partnering together in the making of Disciples for Christ. When the idea of Miracles for Mozambique started, I just thought of BIG possibilities and of open hearts and minds to sustain this project. My family and I started praying for Miracles for Mozambique.

Upon the Press Release in the local News in Atlanta, the congregation was thrilled and I said, lets pray that this Miracles for Mozambique's dream come true. Soon after the Press Release, I shared the good news with my Bishop here. She was also excited about hearing that people of God from overseas are partnering with a Congregation in Mozambique. She said: "Rev Sambo, lets pray with thankful hearts because while we journey in faith and ministry, God uses people as His hands and feet to help the need". Our bishop was right and I never doubted on her. The dream "Miracles for Mozambique" is coming true.

I have ordered the Bibles and Hymnals. I will have them Monday, and this will enable us distribute them to our Congregation before Christmas. It's going to be a wonderful Christmas Gift to our Congregation. I am excited about that day. Certainly, certainly we'll make sure we document that through pictures taking to share with you.

This Sunday Dec 15, we'll announce the Bibles and Hymnals' distribution for Sunday Dec 22. Our calculations will enable us purchase more than 200 Bibles and 150 Hymnals. Like I said, the order has been made and will be collected Monday.

Dr Mark, please, convey our gratitude and greet the Cokes Chapel UMC members. Inform them, their generous donations will continue to change and transform people's lives and expands the kingdom of God in Mozambique. You are a blessing to Liberdade Community in Mozambique Conference.

Yours,

In the same vineyard,

Rev. Joao Sambo

Friends, it warms my heart and blows me away that this project coalesces at Christmas! It is during this season that we celebrate GOD’s sending Jesus, the living Word of GOD, to us to light our path and show us the way. Consider John 1.14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (NIV) I also love how it is stated in The Message version: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.” And since we know Jesus as the Word of GOD, our church…here in Sharpsburg, Georgia…is generously giving the gift of Jesus to a church half-a-world-away! Isn’t it amazing how GOD works?

Friends, I hope as we prepare for next week’s Christmas Eve services, you will add an extra mention in your prayers for our brothers and sisters in Mozambique. I know as I think about the literal shelves of Bibles I have in my office and at home how blessed I am, but the thought that someone might hold a Bible for the first time in his/her entire life, thanks to the generosity of this church, fills my heart with all kinds of Christmas joy!

As Pastor Sambo said, we are all “in the same vineyard”! May our joy be complete this Christmas knowing that something as simple as placing a dollar or two in a treasure chest over a month ago is helping to bring the Word of GOD to people across the world. Thanks for being the church. Thanks for living out your ministry of generosity. And thanks for being part of the miracle…the Christmas miracle!

The Intersection of Hope & Fear

I love Christmas music; always have. It is not uncommon for me to pull out some of my favorite recordings even in the middle of the summer when it is time for me to begin thinking about planning for Advent and Christmas. Nothing quite gets me in the mood like my favorite Christmas carols and songs. But something happened a couple weeks ago that caught me off guard.

I was driving home from a church function right after Thanksgiving. Just before I got to the house, one of my all-time favorite Christmas songs, O Little Town Of Bethlehem, began playing. When I pulled into the garage, I sat back and allowed the words to waft into my heart like the aroma of fresh coffee first thing in the morning. As I listened, one line in particular gave a jolt I was not expecting.

There is a line in the song that goes, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” Hopes and fears; quite an interesting dichotomy, isn’t it? There is very little that separates a hope and a fear. They both live in the future and are shrouded by uncertainty. We all hope for something, but all too often fear creeps in. The “what ifs?” of life seem almost deafening compared to our dreams. Success vs. failure; blessings vs. breakdowns; determination vs. disappointment; when all we want is to succeed. In the baby Jesus, God meets us at the intersection of hope and fear and empowers us to go His direction. Also, in the baby Jesus, we find hope because we find love—a perfect love! And as the good book tells us, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…” (1 John 4.18)

Secondly, when the song says “of all the years,” it can only mean eternity. From the fall of Adam and Eve, God set a plan in motion to break the power of sin and redeem His beloved children. That plan was none other than Jesus lying in his manger bed to one day lead the way to God and eternal life. All of our hopes for a promising future and our fears of dread for a dead-end future collided in the coos of a little boy.

The prophet Jeremiah records the words of God as telling His lost and hopeless people, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (Jeremiah 29.11, NIV, emphasis mine) It has always been God’s plan to give us hope and a future, but our own fear of failure clouds our vision.

It was certainly a moment that has given me renewed vigor and vision for this Advent and upcoming Christmas season. I hope that as you see the sights and hear the music of Christmas, you will see the tiny face, hands, and toes of the little Christ child born to set us free. We all hope for a better tomorrow and often fear the worst. But Jesus is God’s gift of love…a great and wonderful gift.

So this Christmas above all others, may you find in the manger and in your heart God’s gift and promise for hope and a future, knowing love drives out fear! Just as He did on that very first Christmas, God has come to stand at the intersection of our hopes and fears to show us the way, the truth, and the life…His way! So as we get ever closer to this Christmas, may you be blessed by His gift of love and find Him again, right in the middle of your (new) life!

Advent

I got a special gift in the mail the other day; it was from my mom and was actually shipped from her house in Canada before she came home. What is this gift? Well, I’m glad you asked…it is a chocolate Advent calendar!

The chocolate Advent calendar was an annual tradition in the Jordan household. Mom would always buy the family one toward the end of November so we were ready once December 1st arrived. And what was particularly fun for me, having a December birthday and all, was setting up the order in which my brother, sister, and I got to open the windows and reveal the daily treat. I always got to open it on my birthday, so Greg and Kate got to take turns kicking off the month. As the days would pass, and the calendar would become emptier and emptier, we could literally feel the building anticipation of Christmas! After all, isn’t this the purpose of the Advent calendar, and by virtue, Advent itself?

This past Sunday began the season of Advent. Advent is the season of preparation, including four Sundays, that helps us get ready for Christmas. Many churches hold a service of preparation for Christ's coming, which includes hanging greenery traditionally associated with everlasting life. Greens such as cedar for royalty, fir and pine boughs for everlasting life, holly symbolizing Jesus' death and ivy representing the resurrection are used (from www.umc.org). We had more of a festive approach to the traditional Hanging of the Greens as we gathered last Saturday to decorate our facilities and then shared in a potluck chili lunch. It was a lot of fun transforming our worship spaces and chowing down together!

The term, Advent, comes from the Latin, adventus, which literally means, coming. It is during this season when we commemorate the first coming of the Messiah in the Christ child while looking forward to the second coming of Jesus and the complete institution of the Reign of GOD. It is a season of excitement, anticipation, and focusing on the adventure of a life lived in GOD!

Advent is not Christmas, even though culturally we see a lot of bleed-over. Before the Halloween jack-o-lanterns are even been carved,  Christmas decorations tend to appear in our favorite retail outlets and festive music begins to hit the airwaves. We tend to get so inundated with the approaching holidays, that by the time the Thanksgiving turkeys are ready for dinner, the Christmas season has already begun. Then, once December 26^th arrives, we are so over Christmas that we are ready to put away our decorations and the stores are trying to prepare us for Valentine’s Day. The problem is, by then we have just entered into the Christmas season and are to begin celebrating GOD’s gift of Jesus to us. When you think about it, it really is sad.

The Church really wants us to be more intentional about our preparation for Christmas, hence the season of Advent. Advent is designed to help us strategically connect the miracle of Christmas to our everyday lives. This way, by the time the big day has arrived, the excitement and anticipation has built to a fever pitch that we are so ready for the celebration we do not want it to end! So as we go through these four weeks of Advent, we will focus on the hope, peace, joy, and love of GOD so that we are almost ready to burst with the excitement and anticipation that comes with Christmas. Thinking of it this way, Advent should be much more like an adventure than the motions through which we go to mark off the days of a calendar.

I hope you will make every effort to be part of this adventure as we prepare for the glory of Christmas! We have a bevy of fun and worshipful events to help us prepare for Christmas, culminating in our Christmas Eve Candlelight and Communion services at 7pm (contemporary) and 9pm (traditional).

When GOD came in Jesus, everything else was different forever. It was a miraculous event that still causes miracles today. So come, partake of the sweetness of this special season, and make a point to connect the miracle of Christmas for someone else, introducing them to the love and light of GOD in Christ Jesus this Advent and beyond!