TODAY A SPECIAL BEST OF FIELD BY OUR ASSOC EDITOR AND MY COUSIN DAN WILLIAMS..AS
YOU KNOW DAN AND HIS FAMILY FACE A SERIOUS HEALTH ISSUE...I ASK OUR OVER 3,000
FIELD OF DREAMS COMMUNITIES TO CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR HIM AND HIS FAMILY...PART OF
MY FAMILY...GOD BLESS AND GOD SPEED!!    :

"America's NOEL Email".....by Assoc Editor Dan Williams (Yes
Cousin
Dan is making his solo appearance as a "Field" editor) : MERRY
CHRISTMAS, HAPPY CHANUKKA, KOOL KWANZA, PRAY FOR PEACE.
Although this article somewhat contradicts my preferred perspective
that there are actually two seperate holidays, the religious
celebration of the birth story of Christ, and the secular celebration
about Sat-, I mean Santa(which  at its best is about love and giving,
at its worst about raging materialism- a perspective which eliminates
the spiritual)and trying to make them one only damages the more
important one - this article  is really good. And will it ever be
possible that Peace will be a concept  we actually seek and value for
others as well as ourselves, rather than something which we casually
mention during the holidays? Nice thought, anyway, Merry Christmas.
Dan

From Sojourners magazine


Putting Herod back into Christmas
by Joy Carroll Wallis
How people love Christmas carols! When I was a priest back in London,
carol singing around the parish really seemed to get everyone in the
mood for Christmas. We always had a real accordion and an old-
fashioned lantern on a pole; we were always wrapped up warmly, and we
would stop and sing carols under selected streetlights. It was a
scene fit for a Christmas card.... People came out in droves, mostly
non-churchgoers, to listen and put money in our collecting box for
the homeless. When we were finally all sung out, we would trudge back
to someone's house for mulled wine and minced pies...all very
English! Great memories.

But we need to beware! Our culture loves a sentimental Christmas, and
the Christmas carols that we sing are a big part of that. The words
often paint an idyllic picture of sanitary bliss that has very little
to do with the reality of what Jesus came into this world to do. This
week Jim was reading the Christmas story to our son Luke. He read of
how Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem on the donkey, that there
was no room in the inn. But there was a stable, and, as Jim
read, "the stable was warm and clean!"

But this sanitization of the Christmas story is a relatively recent
development. It's interesting that before the Victorian era,
Christmas songs were much more likely to reflect the reality of
Jesus' entry into our world. Carols would not hesitate to refer to
the blood and sacrifice of Jesus or the story about Herod
slaughtering the innocent children. As an example of the contrast,
read through the words of "Away in a Manger." Jesus is the perfect
baby, and "No crying he makes...." My guess is that Jesus cried a
lot. We know from the gospels that the more Jesus saw of the world in
which he lived, the more he mourned and wept regularly. A Jesus who
doesn't weep with those who weep, a Jesus who's just a sentimental
myth, may be the one that our culture prefers, but that Jesus can do
nothing for us.

In Britain there's a very popular musician called Cliff Richard.
About 10 years ago he released a Christmas song that reached the top
10 in the charts. The lyrics of "Saviour's Day" reflected his
Christian faith and included lines such as, "Life can be yours on
Saviour's Day, don't look back or turn away...." I picked up a
teenage pop magazine where there was an article reviewing the
season's Christmas songs. When it came to "Saviour's Day,"
the writer
said, "This song is OK, but there's no holly, no mistletoe and wine,
no presents around the tree, no snow, no Santa, in fact this song
hasn't got anything to do with Christmas at all!" A radio DJ in this
country once said, "What Christmas is all about is the celebration of
living in a great nation like this." It's not a celebration of
this "great" nation; it's about Jesus Christ. It's so easy to
let the
world reduce our spirituality to nostalgia and sentiment. As
Evangelical Covenant Reverend Dr. Michael Van Horn said, "We must be
careful not to lose the connection to the truth of the story because
it is that story that shapes our identity as the people of God."

Another danger of sentimentality is that we tend to lose interest in
the parts of the story that are not so comfortable. We smile at the
warm cozy nativity scene, but have you ever spent a night in a barn?
Or given birth in a barn? The reality is very different. Most
scholars suggest that in Luke's account it's not just that the inns
were full but that Mary and Joseph were forced to take the barn
because their family had rejected them. Joseph has relatives or
friends of relatives in Bethlehem. So rather than being received
hospitably by family or friends, Joseph and Mary have been shunned.
Family and neighbors are declaring their moral outrage at the fact
that Joseph would show up on their doorsteps with his pregnant
girlfriend.

No sooner have the wise men left the stable then King Herod plots to
kill Jesus. He is so determined that he is willing to sacrifice many
innocent lives in order to get to this one baby. Herod recognizes
something about Jesus that in our sentiment we fail to see: that the
birth of this child is a threat to his kingdom, a threat to that kind
of domination and rule. Jesus challenges the very power structures of
this evil age. Herod has all the male infants in Bethlehem murdered.
Not so cozy. This is the Jesus who entered the bloody history of
Israel, and the human race.

But we don't want to think about Herod. Van Horn calls him
the "Ebenezer Scrooge without the conversion, the Grinch without a
change of heart." We Christians like to talk about putting Christ
back into Christmas, but let's not forget to put Herod back into
Christmas.

Herod represents the dark side of the gospel. He reminds us that
Jesus didn't enter a world of sparkly Christmas cards or a world of
warm spiritual sentiment. Jesus enters a world of real pain, of
serious dysfunction, a world of brokenness and political oppression.
Jesus was born an outcast, a homeless person, a refugee, and finally
he becomes a victim to the powers that be. Jesus is the perfect
savior for outcasts, refugees, and nobodies. That's how the church is
described in scripture time and time again - not as the best and the
brightest - but those who in their weakness become a sign for the
world of the wisdom and power of God.

Joy Carroll Wallis is an Anglican priest and the author of The Woman
Behind the Collar (Crossroads) which tells the story of her journey
to ordination. She is also the wife of Jim Wallis editor of Sojourners

by Dan Williams - Cousin of Legendary "Field of Dreams Publisher John
Graham - LOL Thanks Dan!!Let's Roll!!





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