Ralphie

Black Friday is just around the corner. No, not "Good Friday," the Christian remembrance of Christ's death upon the cross: Black Friday. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, Americans rush into retail outlets large and small (mostly really large) in search of amazingly cheap deals on merchandise that will satisfy their Christmas present purchasing obligations. After running in the "red" all year, this is the day when many stores hit paydirt, moving into the "black" of profit.

I awoke this morning to the news that Wal-Mart has been hoodwinked. Someone leaked information of their electronics that will go on sale that fine late-autumn morning. I know that Wal-Mart must be devastated by the hours of free advertising this "leak" is now generating on CNN, Fox, MSNBC and the major networks.

All this pre-pre-Holiday turmoil has moved me to think of my family's Christmas festivities awfully early this year. When I was a kid growing up, our family's season was not complete until we all sat together through the yearly screening of A Christmas Story. You know little Ralphie, right? A Christmas Story is one of those movies, like Christmas Vacation, that you think only your family knows about. Then, as the years go by, you learn that, in fact, every family in America seems to know all the funniest lines by heart. Sometimes I think those two movies are the most most unifying Christmas traditions that we all share in our country today.

Little Ralphie is the ultimate icon of Christmas hope. With all his heart, this 8-year-old boy struggles to hold fast to his faith in Santa that says Christmas dreams will always come true if you'll only believe. Believe...and then hedge your bet by scheming, conniving, and generally conspiring in every way possible to make sure things come out the way he wants them. With relentless determination, Ralphie works throughout the movie to plant hints, implement schemes, manipulate parents, and even personally convince the Big Man in Red to make his Christmas wishes become reality.

If the movie is part of your tradition, you'll never forget the scene where Ralphie finally gets the chance to sit on Santa's lap and make his case face-to-face. He freezes. "Little boy," Santa says, "would you like a football?" "Yeah, football..." a frozen Ralphie replies. "OK, Get him outta here" Santa says to his demented elf who loads little Ralphie on a slide to the bottom of Santa's department store castle. Just as defeat seems inevitable, Ralphie springs back to his senses, catches himself on the slide, looks up to Santa and with his most adorable smile says, "No, I want an official Red Ryder carbine action 200-shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time!"

Santa's reaction is classic. Just like Ralphie's parents, and teacher, he says, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid." With a boot to the forehead, and a "Merry Christmas, Ho, Ho, Ho," Ralphie is pushed down the slide to land squarely upon his freshly crushed hope.

In the end, even if you haven't seen the movie, you know how it's going to come out. Ralphie gets his gun, even when it looks like he surely won't. Could it possibly end any other way?

Not if you're a person of hope.

Ponder something the Bible says:

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1 NRSV)

Faith = Assurance of the "hoped for."

Faith = Conviction of the "not seen."

Stay with me for just a second.

The spiritual equation noted above is one of the Bible's fundamental definitions of faith. "Faith" is the assurance and conviction of "hope," particularly, hope in that which isn't seen. What other kind of hope can there really be? Unless the thing you desire is in some doubt or question, that desire doesn't really qualify as "hope."

I hope that water will flow when I turn on the faucet at my kitchen sink, but I can feel confident that the assumption that it will happen is a pretty reasonable one (we did pay the bill, right?). I don't think that's really "hope" so much as it's just a reasonable expectation based on facts.

But what about, "I hope my kids will become healthy and happy adult people of deep faith." What about, "I hope my cancer can be cured" or, "I hope this decision is in keeping with God's will?" Those take a little more grit, don't they? Hebrews pushes us to hope --- a hope that means "assurance" of those "unseen" things.

OK, you ask a legitimate question at this point: "What does any of this have to do with Red Ryder BB guns?"

Again, stay with me. If we've seen how God defines faith, I thought it might be interesting to see how we humans do it. Merriam-Webster says that faith is, "firm belief in something for which there is no proof." "Proof" is defined as, "the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or fact."

Belief, even in the lack of compelling evidence. That's faith as the world describes it, and actually it sounds a whole lot like the Bible's definition, too.

You see, I love A Christmas Story, and especially little Ralphie, because he's such an image for me of the real-world situations in which we all find ourselves. We want to believe, even where we haven't seen, and even when age and experience starts to make us wonder whether we're just being foolish in the first place.

But by now, of course, I've seen the movie a hundred times. This December, as I watch Ralphie's story unfold one more time, I will be supremely confident that his hopes will be fulfilled by the time the final credits roll. I've seen it, and I know how it ends.

And maybe that's it.

Maybe what Hebrews is trying to tell us is that Christians are people of deep conviction in things unseen because on some level we have seen the end already. The good news of the Gospel is that God has chosen to be with us. The Christmas story of Christ's incarnation is the beginning of the end for all that is broken in ourselves and in our world. We are people who know, with full confidence (on our best days), that our deepest hopes will be fulfilled, even if we can't prove it.

We hope for peace, and healing and wholeness. We hope for reconciliation and love and equality. We hope for holiness and righteousness and justice. We hope for an end to pain and suffering. No matter how hard the world tries to push us down the slide of doubt, we catch ourselves --- no, God catches us.

We are the people who say, "these things will be." And very surely, wherever people make the great leap of faith and act out that confidence in the actions of their lives, these things are, even now.

In these weeks before the celebration of Christ's birth, may there be a little "Ralphie" in us all.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

LIFE AT SOTH

Welcome to our newest members, Kimberly, Scott and Danica Samples. Little Danica was baptized at our 8:30 service this past Sunday and Kimberly and Scott transferred their church membership to Shepherd of the Hills. We are so excited that they've made their commitment to be a part of the SOTH family and to serve Christ in this place.

Today our mission team departs for Pascagoula, MS, to aid in Hurricane Katrina rebuilding efforts. May our prayers be with them all and may God guide their steps. We look forward to hearing their stories this Sunday.

Part Two of our study on United Methodism, "An English Dude, A Horse, and A Mission" happens tonight in the sanctuary, 6:30 pm. Tonight we'll look at the development of the Methodist denomination and our history and organization here in the U.S.

The Pumpkin sale was incredible! Special thanks to youth director Cindi Bartlett for an incredible work of coordination and many hours given. She was supported by a team of incredibly dedicated volunteers and a great team that unloaded the trailer (twice!). Reports are that gross sales were over $10,000!