Black Friday...

Perhaps you were one of the millions of folks who swarmed into stores last Friday at 4:00am to kick off the holiday shopping season. I personally don't understand the attraction. But then, I wouldn't jump out of an airplane or wrestle alligators either. I suppose everyone has their own sense of adventure.

What intrigues me is the name that the retailers have given their big day...Black Friday. For those in my generation and older, the word black (apart from its racial implications) is usually associated with the negative or empty or disappointing. "Black Friday" hardly means that for retailers who (some of them at least) count on that day and the season to follow to make their entire sales year. It's just that the name seems weird.

Then again...we Christians celebrate a Friday, too. We call it "Good." At first glance, it's the most terrible day we could possibly imagine. But it turns out that what happens on that day and on the brief three-day season to follow makes our entire year, too...indeed, our entire life.

Black Friday. Good Friday. Funny names. But I guess it makes sense after all.

Jesus the Turkey?

I'm scheduled to be the preacher at this week's Community Thanksgiving service (Wednesday at 7:00pm at St. John's United Church of Christ, Elmore). Stands to reason, then, that it's about time to think about the sermon.

So here's a first thought...a question, actually? That turkey which you will enjoy on Thursday at Grandma's house...what did he ever do to you? And yet we will jump in, carve him up and eat him until we are somewhere well past full.

The turkey...an innocent victim of our hungers. The turkey...a Christ figure? Maybe. Guess it all depends on what we do afterwards. Fall asleep in the Lazy-Boy with our pants undone...or discover that we've been fed so that we can feed...so that we can witness to the providence of God.

We'll see where this analogy goes by Wednesday evening.

Praying with the Saints...

We paused and prayed in the chapel beneath the old basilica at Assisi, Italy. There above the altar are the remains of the blessed St. Francis. My Roman Catholic colleagues described that experience as an opportunity to pray to St. Francis for the sake of the world. And they were deeply gratified by the experience. Probably because I'm Lutheran, I found myself praying with St. Francis...also for the sake of the world and for the peace for which he so famously prayed.

Praying to? Praying with? Is there a difference? I think so. And it may be a difference worthy of more theological reflection than a brief blog entry can accommodate. But in the meantime, allow me to suggest...

Francis and all of God's holy ones...those gone before us, those with whom we now share the earthly church, and those whose days in this sphere are yet to come...are one in the mystical body of Christ. We cannot perceive it completely because we are bound by the mortal constraints of space and time. God...our God of the living...is not so bound. So His holy ones are there with us at the font, around the table, and in the community's life of prayer, worship and praise. They are our sisters and brothers...our friends in the faith. And in the same way we would ask a friend in this life to pray with us or for us, might we not also ask the saints of every time and place that their prayers would be joined with ours and ours with theirs?

Often afraid of being "too Catholic," we Lutherans have avoided the saints. It occurs to me that we have done so to our own detriment. In our worship, in our understanding of the depth and breadth of Christian experience, we would do well to remember the saints...and to join our prayer to theirs.