December note from Brother Biddle

It is always a pleasure to hear from Brother Biddle. Since we are both retired now, it is more like Christmas letters in Christmas cards and Easter greetings, but it is still good to hear from him.  He said he had had a knee replacement and cataract surgery was scheduled for February, but other than that and a few extra pounds he is in fine shape.

His first complaint was that East Burlap did not have a Starbuck shop. He said it must be the only town in America without one, but he had wanted to get one of those red cups they were selling. He wanted to show his support for red cups; said he liked red cups; said he did not know what was wrong with the color red.  In his view all that noise about red cups being "anti-Christmas" was silly. If you want to see a real war on Christmas you just need to go to any mall and look at all the materialism and commercialization of Christmas. That is the really war. Santa is the real enemy.

Retirement has its good side because it meant that he did not have to get involved in the great theological conflict at the East Burlap Protestant Parish.  It seems that the Bruce Jenner sex change had raised some interesting questions at the Parish.  Somebody wanted to know if Mary was bi-sexual as she had had relations with the Holy Spirit and with Joseph. Naturally that was refuted immediately and decisively. But that lead to the question of what kind of sex Jesus was?  Did he just have one Chromosome since he just had one human parent?  If you did a DNA test on Jesus would you find an X and Y chromosome?  The next step was to have some one wonder if Jesus was a gay man, but someone else said he was heterosexual as he spent a lot of time with prostitutes. That was an agreement that may have answered one problem, but created another.  Of course, the debates created a lot of heat at East Burlap, but little light, and Brother Biddle was glad he was not the one who had to shepherd the people through that.

A pastor's heart always bleeds when there is a great tragedy in a community where he serves. This year in East Burlap the whole community was saddened when a young father shot his three year old daughter on the day after Christmas.  The young father had gotten a gun, a pistol, as a Christmas present from his wife. He had always wanted one, but he had never had a gun before. He thought he would be able to protect his family better. The day after Christmas he was "playing" with it, fast drawing from the hip, and he drew and pulled the trigger and it killed his little girl. Turns out he did not even know how to load it, know how to check to see if it was loaded, and where the safety was. Brother Biddle said this gun culture in this country was one of its great sicknesses.

Having just celebrated the birth of Jesus and heard again the story of the Christ Child come to bring the Kingdom of God Brother Biddle is amazed how dogmatic and violent people who believe they are right can be. Why is there such a human compulsion to try to make everybody believe the same way? The Sunni and the Shiites, the Buddhists against the Moslems, the Moslems against the Christians, the Jews against the Moslems. anti-abortionists against the pro-choice, the zeal of the righteous is deadly, and Brother Biddle fell back on theology. We are not saved by being right but by the gift of grace.  It is always good to hear from Brother Biddle.