Adventful Advent!

Over four hundred people crowded St. Stephen's campus and buildings for our annual "Christmas on the Hill" event this past Wednesday. The evening was warm and breezy and that had to help bring the crowds out, but still, it was an amazing event. Excluding worship, "Christmas on the Hill" displays everything that's good about St. Stephen. (I am prejudiced, of course!) This year we called it "Southwestern Christmas on the Hill." The theme was cowboy, and everyone was dressed fit to kill. Around here, of course, the odds are they were going to dress like that anyway! Cowboy hats and boots abounded. There was fake steer ropin', wagon rides, crafts and plenty of vittles. And then there's the "on the hill" side of our events--we always break out big sheets of cardboard and slide down the hill.

Becky Evans, our on-site representative of Presbyterian Children's Homes and Services, turned out probably twenty families she works with, adding at least 100 people to the crowd. We've partnered with PCHAS for years. We are one of the few churches-possibly the only church--that office a PCHAS rep. During Katrina, we worked together to provide aid for literally hundreds of families and to host one victim family for over a year. Every year we help PCHAS collect Christmas gifts for clients, but this was the first year we've used Christmas on the Hill as their day to celebrate Christmas. It was wonderful. It was a blessing to see how much the parents' faces lighted up as they watched their kids having fun.

My job was to write, direct, and narrate "A Cowboy Christmas." We performed it three times in the sanctuary. I have to say, it was a blast, and seemed to receive good reviews! I wrote it as if the nativity was taking place in the old West ('right near here in Palesteen!'). The angel Gabe, played with a perfect Western accent by 17 year old Sarah Sanchez, came and told Mary that she would have a baby and name him "Hey-zooz." Ihoma Owhonda, playing Mary, said, in the cynical sardonic teenage way she says everything, "Well... I AM a servant of the Lord..." as if she was saying, "Oh, oh-kay," and rolling her eyes. The angel Gabe then woke up Travis Johnson, playing Joseph, and told him "Be a man about this! Marry Mary!"

The Three Wise Men were "City Slickers from the East, from New York or somewheres," who rode their horses backward. They accidently wound up in Dallas and made the mistake of asking Sherriff Herod about the new king. And ol' Sherriff Herod was played by Art Clayton, a giant ex-football player who is a gang prosecutor. He dressed himself all in black with a big star on his chest and spat and swore he'd get a posse together to hunt this baby Hey-zooz down. So the angel Gabe told Joseph that they had to escape Herod by going to Oklahoma.

Like I said, so much that makes this church great was on display--numerous, hard-working volunteers, our mission orientation, our diversity, people of all ages, and most of all our sense of fun. For all that we have this strong commitment to high worship, mission, and thoughtful faith, one of the best things about St. Stephen is that we just love to have a good time. Thanks to Beth Fultz and Mark Scott and all the volunteers who made this event possible!

Lent and Easter Highlights: I

Thursday afternoon about forty adults and children joined me, music director Mark, and DCE Beth for our first ever "family-oriented" Maundy Thursday service. It was Thursday afternoon, soon after children's choir. We'd decided to do this because we realized that our regular service, at 7:00 pm, was not really a child-friendly experience, if only because of the time; and if it's not child-friendly, it's not parent-friendly, either. Maundy Thursday is just too important to the Christian faith for us to neglect educating kids about its meaning.

We three staff can easily get a bit overwhelmed by the requirements of Passion Week, but in this case we had so much fun, both in planning and execution! The service was in the "crossing," the gigantic area between the pulpit and the pews. It centered on three things--telling the story, the foot-washing (which we did as a hand-washing), and communion. We performed two or three Taize songs. It took less than thirty minutes.

The families were so excited to be there! Many of them were already here for kids' choir and they just played in the front lawn of the church until it was time. It was a beautiful Spring day. The children at the service ranged from under two to probably ten or eleven. They wandered and squirmed freely, and I had the impression the parents knew that was fine, because they seemed relaxed and worshipful themselves.

In addition to parents, there were grandparents and even adults of all sorts who simply wanted to be there for whatever reason. "Miss Paula," as she is known, the wonderful woman who teaches our "Godly Play" class for pre-schoolers, was there. So were Ada and her beau, Bill. Ada is in her eighties, a lifelong member of St. Stephen. She is spry, stylish, and youthful; she and Bill go out dancing regularly. As Beth and I were performing the handwashing, Ada was smiling and dashing away tears. We were performing it at the baptismal font, and Bill whispered to me, "This is the eighty-nine anniversary of her baptism."

Maundy Thursday

Today is Maundy Thursday, when Christians remember Jesus' Last Supper. Today and tomorrow, Good Friday, are "downer" days, and for good reason: we remember Jesus' arrest, mock trials, torture, and crucifixion death. We are reminded that we are just like Judas, who betrayed Jesus; and Peter, who denied Jesus; and all his male disciples, who ran away when it was crunch time. We are reminded that it was for our sins and shortcomings that Jesus died, and we're humbled by it.

But "Maundy" in Maundy Thursday doesn't mean, "maudlin." It comes from an Old English and Latin-rooted word that means "command." The command it means specifically is the one Jesus gives his disciples in John 13:34-36: "I give you a new command, that you love one another. As I have loved you, so you should also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another."

We could go on and on about this command, about how we live in a world where we take "Christian on Christian" violence for granted in our wars or that rhetoric between the sides on any religiously-charged issue inevitably heats up to the point that its clear to anyone watching that supposed Christians hate each other. And then there's the idea that this command may be too limited, that it's only about Christians loving Christians. Interesting and important, but I don't want to go there today.

But over Lent, I've just been grateful for the ways people at St. Stephen have loved one another. A committee of the Christian Ed committee, led by our Director of Christian Ed, Beth, has been working with a teen in need and reported good news--at last, she has graduated high school! Their support for her was so critical, a true example of Christians loving one another.

We had two large funerals over the course of Lent. Tom's six year struggle with cranial cancer ended at last, and he entered the heavenly kingdom. What a turn-out from both church members and the community! After his death, we all shared stories of his indomitable spirit, his wonderful sense of humor, and his deep faith. But one stood out to me. The cranial cancers and the resulting surgery caused him facial disfigurement, something about which he was often embarrassed, but he faithfully showed up to church and in other public venues each Sunday. One little girl was at first scared of him, so her dad suggested one Sunday that she draw him a picture and give it to him after church. She did. Now the truth was that Tom was a delightful, joyous fellow, someone who loved life, someone who immediately connected to children. The little girl fell in love with him immediately and afterward always looked for him after church. When her dad told her he'd died, she cried.

Christian on Christian love strikes again.

The other big funeral was Larry, a no-nonsense, plain-speaking rabble-rouser of the best sort. He'd been a mainstay of the church, as a member, an officer, and as a choir member with an extraordinary tenor voice and a love for every kind of music from gospel to Faure to Taize. His last day on earth he was basically unconscious, surrounded by family, friends, and church members. Choir members gathered at his bedside to sing "The Iona Boat Song," Larry's favorite:

From the falter of breath, through the shadow of death, to the wonder that's breaking beyond...

Our music director, Mark, was teaching in Denton and rushed to his bedside as soon as he could. he walked in, grasped Larry's hand, said "I'm here"--and Larry entered God's kingdom.

Christian on Christian love.