Message from the pastor

At the end of the year we are asked to look back over the last twelve months and assess how we have lived. The IRS does this by asking us to assess our financial lives. Entertainment TV reviews for us which stars died in the past year and lists their contributions. Time magazine honors a person for making a major contribution with the designation of "the person of the year". The news media reviews the major events that happened around the world. On a personal level on New Year's Eve we each review the events of our last year and make new resolutions.

It seems fitting that one scriptural text for New Year's Eve is a parable in which the King of the world assesses each person in the kingdom on the basis of whether they have fed the hungry, given water to the thirsty, visited the sick and imprisoned, and clothed those in need. The traditional message is clear; God wants us to help others. God wants us to love the neighbor (Matthew 25: 31ff).

God may also be asking more of us. We need to look at more than what we have done and what we have not done, and what we have accomplished and what we have not accomplished. God is also interested in who we are, in our heart, in our wholeness. It is our heart that determines what we do in our lives.

My favorite movie for the Christmas season is Scrooge, portrayed in Charles Dickens' story, "A Christmas Carol." It is a movie loved by many of us. If we take a deeper look into what changed Scrooge and what made it possible for him to become deeply joyful, childlike, and giving, we will come close to the secret of the scriptural passage chosen for New Year's Eve.

How was Scrooge's heart changed? The ghost of Christmas' past had a key role in this. This ghost takes Scrooge on a journey into his past, events both joyful and painful. The point of taking Scrooge on a journey into his past is to relive the love, joy, compassion, kindness, and vulnerability that he possessed as a young man and relive the turning points where he lost these. We see young Ebenezer in love with a woman to whom he becomes engaged. We see him in joyful relationship with his sister. We see him at work happily employed by a man of kindness and principles, and we see him enjoy a holiday party provided generously by his boss.

Scrooge became hardened over time. He becomes bitter at the death of his sister as she gave birth to a son. He feels contempt for this nephew, the same expression of contempt he was made to feel when his mother died giving him birth years earlier. We see him succumb to the temptation of an unscrupulous businessman who seduces him to work for him at three times his present salary. We see him break off his engagement to his fiancé, whom he feels is no longer worthy of his new status. She is poor and without a dowry. He develops contempt for the poor and needy. He is alone, lonely, bitter, alienated from others, and quite wealthy.

While our theology asks us to befriend the stranger, to welcome him or her, we see that what is first required of us is to locate, befriend, and welcome the stranger within ourselves. It is a spiritual truth that we cannot love others until we love ourselves. The ghost of Christmas' past knew this. Ebenezer had to look back, locate and reclaim the stranger within himself before he could claim and befriend the strangers in his midst. He had to reclaim with compassion those parts of himself that he had lost. He had to feed the hungry part of himself, visit the sick and imprisoned parts of himself, and give refreshment to his thirsty parts of himself before he could do these things for others. It could not happen otherwise.

There are questions for each of us as we look back over our last year or over our lives. What have we lost that needs reclaimed? What part within do we treat as a stranger and must befriend? Am I bitter? Do I hate? Am I prejudiced? Am I addicted? Am I always angry? Am I afraid and anxious? Remember that Scrooge begged the ghost not to take him back to each painful event in his past, yet at each of these events he was able to acknowledge what happened, feel the pain, and mourn it openly. In this was healing and the ability to decide anew how he wished to respond. He chose to befriend and love himself, which allowed him to do the same of others.

One last thought. Several times in the movie, Scrooge says to one of the ghosts that he is too old to change and that they should pick on someone younger who has a future. Dickens was right in his wisdom. He wanted to show us that even as deeply embedded as we are in our habits and patterns of living, we are never too old to learn, change, and make new contributions. We do not diminish in value because we age. Dickens wanted to show us that age has the benefit of giving us new opportunities to live life abundantly, just as God wants us to.

May we find the grace to meet the stranger within ourselves that is thirsty, naked, and alone. And may that meeting heal us to love ourselves so that we might love others, thereby finding a deeper and lasting joy.

Pastor Kathleen J. Rusnak

© 2004 by Kathleen J. Rusnak. All Rights Reserved. This page may be copied and distributed only with author's name attached, giving the author credit.