Memorial United Methodist Church

I recently heard a story, “The babies of Lincoln Hospital.” Some might call these “crack babies.” Their mothers left them because of their own addiction and many other reasons. Women from a nearby church learned of the children’s story. They took turns coming to the hospital to hold, rock and feed them. The women, as soon as they took a step toward the hospital were praying with their feet (and their arms), were beginning/continuing a life-long compassionate journey, were sharing the love they had received in their own lives and were Christ’s hands and feet. How beautiful!

 

• Help the men and women of Anchor House in Brooklyn, which serves people attempting to get free of addiction.
• Provide iTune cards for soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.
• Provide a water buffalo for a village through the Heifer project.
• Provide shelter for LGBT kids, homeless this Christmas as they have been evicted by their families.

No amount of tinsel and commercialism can obscure the fact that Christmas is perhaps the most subversive holiday of the year - secular or religious.  It began even before Jesus' birth, with the politically incendiary Magnificat, the song in which Jesus' mother proclaims that the Lord "has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.  He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty" (Luke 1:51-53).  The infant Jesus learned political insurrection at his mother's breast.

Mary's words harken to Jesus' final sermon, in which he speaks not a word about what we must believe but only about what we must do, in which he admonishes us to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger (alien), clothe the naked, tend the sick, and visit the imprisoned (Matthew 25), upon penalty of eternal separation from God if we do not.  Born in a stable, Jesus brought down an empire, foreshadowed by his overthrowing of the tables of the moneychangers (a "den of thieves" he called them) because they stole from the needy and extorted the poor.  Angels heralded Jesus' birth not to kings and nobility but to shepherds, peasants living on the margins of society. These angels proclaimed peace to every person of good will; but to those not of good will, no peace shall ever come, for "all who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Matthew 26:52).

The Emperor Augustus, though born of human parents in the ordinary way, claimed a Roman god as a distant ancestor and for himself divine status.  But Jesus, the Gospels tell us, was born of a virgin as the son of the one true God, with a lineage stretching back millennia before the founding of Rome and including the greatest king of the ancient world, David.  Matched credential for credential, Jesus' birth outshone Caesar's.

And those names given to Jesus at his birth - King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace - were not concocted by some gospel writers in the late 1st century CE.  They were real names of a real person, the names of none other than Caesar, Emperor of Rome.  To take those titles from the Emperor and give them to Jesus constituted an act of treason because it meant simply this: that God is King, and Caesar (or Putin or Ahmadinejad or Kim or Chavez or Obama or any other earthly leader) is not.  Christmas decrees that every earthly leader, every people, every nation, that lords it over another acts wholly without authority and contrary to the will of God and shall be laid low.

So, whether you celebrate Christmas or merely acknowledge its existence by taking a day off from work, remember that the one for whom this holiday is named came to throw down the empires of the rich and raise up the kingdom of the poor.

6:00 to 7:00 p.m.
Food ordering starts at 5:30 p.m.
Dorry’s Diner

On September 14, Pat Casey, Editor and publisher, White Plains Times   -- What’s happening in White Plains? As we enter the fall season of 2010, what is the status of life here? How are the businesses doing? Who’s new in town? What can we expect going forward?
September 21: Jerry Goldman
Jerry Goldman, a retired science and math teacher, grew up in Brooklyn and has always
been an activist. In the 1980s and 90s he was a Hudson River sailor and environmental teacher.
In his early years he managed a coffee house in Greenwich Village during the beat period of
Ralph Ginsberg. In the early 1960s he was a civil rights activist who helped found the
CORE chapter at Brooklyn College and traveled south as a freedom rider. He spent time with
Dr. King and later, during the Black Power revolution on college campuses, traveled with an
Afro Jazz band where he was the only white member. At Dorry’s he will speak with us
about his activism and will share some of the music that was part of it.
September 28 : Madiha Tubman
Madiha Tubman was born in Kenya, and grew up there and in Tanzania. In 1991 she
settled in White Plains, where, a Muslim woman, she has raised her son and worked at
Congregation Kol Ami for 17 years, currently as financial controller. She will talk with
us about her journey to the United States, and some of the joys and challenges
she experiences at this time in her life and in our nation’s history.

Tuesdays @ Dorry's gathers "conversation partners" weekly for informal table talk. There is no charge. Order food at 5:30 p.m., and then enjoy a stimulating program from 6-7 p.m. - Tuesdays @ Dorry's is coordinated by Dorry's friends at Memorial United Methodist Church, Congregation Kol Ami, Sisters of the Divine Compassion and the White Plains Times.

Dorry’s Diner • 468 Mamaroneck Avenue • White Plains • (914) 682-0005

If you know any woman currently undergoing Chemo, please pass the word to her that there is a cleaning service that provides FREE  housecleaning - 1 time per month for 4 months while she is in treatment.

All she has to do is sign up and have her doctor fax a note confirming the treatment. Cleaning for a Reason will have a participating maid service in her zip code area arrange for the service. http://www.cleaningforareason.org

Please pass this information on to bless a woman going through Breast Cancer treatment. This organization serves the entire USA and currently has 547 partners to help these women. It's our job to pass the word and let them know that there are people out there that care. Be a blessing to someone and pass this information along.

Every third Thursday of the month, 7:30pm

Led by Rev. Sara Thompson Tweedy

Music led by Rev. Eric Jennings