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Towards the end of November, the liturgical season of Pentecost advanced inexorably forward as Jesus marched along "the way" to Jerusalem. Then, with virtually no warning, Pentecost bumped into the season of Advent. Scripture lessons describing Jesus' conflicts in Jerusalem prior to his crucifixion suddenly gave way to lessons and carols expressing Israel's hopes for a Messiah who would ransom a captive people from their long exile. The road to the cross took a quick turn and headed for the manger.
What a fascinating juxtaposition! Knowing what will happen as we approach the story's climax at the end, we abruptly jump back to the beginning to recall what people in the story hoped would happen and how they expected it to end.
At the end of Pentecost, we find Jesus in the Jerusalem Temple engaged in one dispute after another with various authorities. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians repeatedly set traps for Jesus with trick questions regarding the Law and Israel's obligation to Caesar, but Jesus runs circles around them. Losing face before the crowds, these powerful men decide Jesus must die. As Jesus leaves the Temple, it becomes clear that another issue is at stake--the very status of the Temple itself. Jesus prophesies that the Temple will be destroyed, and that he himself will return to replace it after its destruction. Soon after, the authorities arrest Jesus and drag him before Pontius Pilate. It becomes clear that he will be crucified, just as he said.
In a strict linear telling of the story, we would now proceed to Lent and Easter to follow the events of Jesus' death and resurrection. Instead, we bump into Advent and move back to the beginning. Only after all the hopes and expectations of the beginning are given voice do we jump ahead to Lent and Easter to see how it all works out.
This is a great way to engage the story of Jesus. It's much more effective than a straight reading from beginning to end. Much of the story's drama comes through the dashing of people's initial hopes and expectations, and the somewhat gut-wrenching creation of brand new hopes and expectations. What many people hope for and expect from the Messiah is not what they get. Jesus does not conform to and fulfill the religious and nationalistic dreams of the captive people. He doesn't do what many thought he should do in the way they thought he should do it. Instead, Jesus radically redefines the meaning and the mission of the Messiah. He crucifies many common hopes and expectations, and brings to life new ones.
Advent and Christmas are seasons of hope and expectation. But the story's bigger picture reminds us that what we hope for and expect from God may not be what we get. Hopes and expectations are vital to our lives. They energize us with passion and purpose. But one of the spiritual dramas that defines our lives is that God often meets us in our hopes and expectations in a way that confounds them, radically redefines them, deepens and broadens them, and sets us on paths toward new realities.
May your Advent and Christmas be filled with hope and expectation. And may God meet you in them.
FREEZE NIGHT SHELTER
Freeze Nights are coming soon, and a number of you have responded to the call to help staff our cold weather shelter for homeless youth. Thanks to Ben White, John Burlinson, Sara Ross, Tommie Pinkard, Doyal Pinkard, Matt Blackstock, Dennis Murphy, Jennifer Howicz, John Goff, Robin Chapman, and Reuel Nash. If anyone else would like to join this illustrious group, please speak to John Goff or Tom VandeStadt. Our designated nights are Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, and alternate Sundays. John Goff will be the Monday night supervisor. Tom VandeStadt will be the Wednesday night supervisor. Tom VandeStadt and Robin Chapman will share supervision on Saturday and Sunday nights.
Freeze Night works in the following manner. We schedule two volunteers from our church for every Freeze Night, so you are always with one other person from church plus the supervisor. The supervisor (John, Tom or Robin) simply makes sure the volunteers show up, that there's a good dinner to serve, and that everything is in order. The supervisor may or may not stay until 11:00. There will also be a LifeWorks staff person on duty. The night shift goes from 6:45 to 11:00 pm, and the breakfast shift goes from 6 to 7 am. The volunteers help the youth get settled, prepare dinner or breakfast, help clean up afterwards, supervise smoke breaks, and make sure lights are out at 11:00 pm. In the evening, the youth often like to settle down with a video, or play cards and board games.
We're still seeking donations for food--big cans of soup or stew, coffee, hot chocolate, juice, and big frozen casseroles. We go through plenty of disposable bowls, coffee cups, plates, spoons and forks as well. Socks and underwear are also big hits at the shelter.
DINNERS FOR HOMELESS YOUTH
LifeWorks has asked our church to host three or four dinners a year for homeless youth. These dinners are a regular Thursday night event at St. Austin Catholic Parish, but three or four times a year there are schedule conflicts at St. Austin. The Outreach Committee agreed to host the dinners at these times, and we'll be looking for volunteers to help cook the meal and clean up afterwards. All the food and recipes for cooking will be provided by LifeWorks. We don't know precisely when we'll be needed to host, but we will get about a month's notice in advance. If you are interested in participating, please contact John Goff or Tom VandeStadt
CHRISTMAS DINNER
Please plan for our Third Annual Christmas Dinner. This is a tremendously fun and joyous event that begins at 12:00 noon on Christmas Day with a brief celebration of Holy Communion. The meal begins around 1 pm. We simply open our doors, and anyone who wants to come in and join us can. The first year, about 25 homeless folks joined us. Last year, about 70 homeless folks joined us. As dictated by tradition, our Christmas Kitchen Coordinator will be presented with a ceremonial Santa hat. This year, Joe McMillan has offered to be our Coordinator/Santa. No doubt, he'll do that hat justice! Thanks Joe.
We'll be in need of Santa's Helpers. Here's a rundown of what we'll need for that day.
--Christmas Spirit: the desire to offer the gift of love and service to other people.
--Kitchen and dining room help: folks to help Joe heat up food in the kitchen, set tables, set the food out, help serve, sit with the guests and enjoy a great meal, and then clean up afterwards. You can come for the whole event or just one hour or so--that's entirely up to you.
--Food Preparation: folks who can prepare food in advance, and then drop it off at church prior to the meal. Food can include potluck fare like vegetables, salads, breads, and desserts.
--Folks willing to offer some money for the purchase of pre-cooked hams and beverages.
Women's Book Club
Selections coming up.
December: Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
January: Leif Enger, Peace Like a River
To: Cathy Hubbs for lovingly folding, stuffing, folding, labeling and tabbing the November VISITOR.
If you would like to be help prepare the VISITOR for mailing, please let Trish know!!
Plan now to attend the Holiday Brass Concert at the church at 7:30 on Thursday evening, December 4. As a special holiday treat, two will be admitted for the price of one ($15.00 for 2!). Come and bring a friend.
Before dawn on Oct. 23, Tommie Pinkard, Sara Ross, Cathy Hubbs, and Jewel Ellis of United Christian left Austin for Talladega, Alabama, to attend the 13th Biennial Meeting of Women of the Southern Region of the United Church of Christ. One of the greatest joys of the trip was having the opportunity to visit with Hulen Brown. It was a very successful, multi-cultural meeting. A high point was an excellent presentation and large offering taken on behalf of an Alabama women's prison ministry. Our delegates arrived home Monday, Oct. 27, weary, but enlightened and glad they made the long trip! The trip was about 800 miles each way--amazing!
Ida Little sent a note to share with one and all. In it she included pictures taken on July 4th. In one she is bedecked with flags and balloons and is riding a scooter of some sort. In another she is holding her great-grandsons Gunther and Wiley. Check at church next week and we will post them on a bulletin board. She reports that she is delighted to be receiving the Visitor and enjoys seeing the familiar names and learning the new ones in our community of faith. She is living in a retirement community, Immanuel Lakeside Retirement Home, 17475 Frances St., Apt. 3013, Omaha, NE 68139-2354.
All of the Nash girls -- Ellie, Annie, and Becky -- will be dancing in the Austin Children's Nutcracker at the Dougherty Arts Center from Thursday, December 11-- Sunday, December 14, a total of 6 shows, so all Nashes will be pretty worn out after that week. The girls have been in the Nutcracker many times before. It seems to be part of getting ready for Christmas in their family. Liz suggests that folks might be interested in coming to this production because it is in a small theater, is somewhat shorter than the original, and is basically child-friendly. The Dougherty Arts Center in on Barton Springs Road just a few blocks east of South Lamar.
The Adams's have a full house. Mama Adams is living with them, as you all know. Now Kerry's dad is also staying with them for a while, to undergo some medical tests and a minor surgical procedure. Jamie and his fiancee Lauren are scheduled to come for Thanksgiving, but, if Grandpa is still with them, Michael has made a contingency plan--to farm the kids out to friends for that holiday period.
Rizer Everett has been attending the talks and seminars during the fall term of the meetings of the LAMP (Learning Activities for Mature People) organization. He has enjoyed most of them very much because of the great range of the content of the lectures. The attendees have learned about the facts relevant to therapeutic stem cell research, the movement of light through space and various transparent substances, and several interesting lectures about public affairs. The end-of-term dinner was attended by 346 members in mid-November in the main dining room of the UT Alumni Center. He is looking forward to the winter term of meetings to learn if he will be willing to be one of the lecturers for the spring 2004 term.
Brave Mary Sinclair took ye editor up on her challenge to tell special Thanksgiving stories. Mary and Richard had friends from Chicago and Koji Kamakari, an attendee at our church and a UT student from Japan in '92 or thereabouts Mary pulled the turkey out of the oven with a flourish--and dropped it! Mary believes Koji's still teaching in Kobe City although they haven't heard from him in some time. Then Mary added, "Come to think of it, though, it was a Christmas turkey not Thanksgiving!" Mary and Richard just came home from 10 days in Hamilton, Ontario where they attended the christening of their newest grandson Nathan Jackson Bardati and celebrated the 4th birthday of his big brother Jacob. Nathan is a very healthy 4 month old weighing in at 17 lbs (no wonder her back hurts from carrying him around). Mary spent a lot of time with her mother Joyce Sinclair who is doing very well after spending nearly a year recovering from a very bad fall last October, and she was also able to spend time with three of her four sisters. The weather was mild for November and the trees were still colorful and her sister informed her that they missed the first snow by four days. They were not unhappy about that!
The entire Briggs/Fracasso clan were in Steubenville, Ohio, for the Thanksgiving holiday. They celebrated the christening of Stella Nicolina, the new daughter of Paula Briggs and her musician husband Michael Fracasso. Michael was on tour and met them there. Fran and Rambie flew in with Paula , Giovanni, and Stella. Their son Jonathan with his wife Beth and daughter Margit drove from North Carolina. What a wonderful get-together for everyone.
Once again, Sara and Dave Ross have been traveling in opposite directions. While Dave was returning from a day in San Diego, Sara was on her way to San Francisco. Dave attended a memorial service for Marshall Rosenbluth, the former director of the Institute for Fusion Studies, who died recently. Sara is helping her Aunt "Ginger" to prepare for a move to a retirement home in Oregon, where one of Sara's cousins lives. Sara returned home after a week or so. They enjoyed having their son Mike with them for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Pat Oakes spent a happy and exhausting week with her daughter Beth and her grandchildren Emily, almost 3, and Ethan, 8 months. Eugene was there for a few days and then went to Oakland to help his mom, so Pat was there as back-up. For Halloween Emily loved being Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, wearing a costume made by her grandmother. Ethan was a stellar cowardly lion. The visit was a cheerful contrast to the visit Pat made to visit her folks 2 weeks before. Pat's mom had been diagnosed with endometrial cancer, which has spread. She had just had surgery and they were waiting to find out the prognosis. While it is not good, Lois is determined to fight the disease and started radiation therapy in mid-November.
The Stewardship Committee says
Thank You!
Thanksgiving Day may have come and gone by the time you read this, but if your Stewardship Committee had its way, this year's Thanksgiving celebration would last for weeks!
Why? Because we have a lot to be thankful for:
- Pledges in support of our church's vision for 2004 are currently in excess of $140,000 - that puts us 5% or so ahead of where we were at this time last year.
- Thirty-four pledges have been received to date, 5 more than last year.
- Nearly all of these pledges were received by Pledge Sunday, October 19 - which was a great help to the Budget Committee, charged as it is with working out a final 2004 budget on a timely basis.
- Income from the rental of church facilities will contribute more than $10,000 to next year's operational budget (as now planned, an equal amount will be applied to the church's capital fund).
- With these sources, plus a moderate fraction of the unpledged contributions that the church has received in recent years, it appears that the budget supporting our church's vision for 2004 may in fact be fully funded.
All this is wonderful news! And the Stewardship Committee is very grateful, particularly to:
- Everyone - EVERYONE! - who has pledged
- The Board of Trustees, in working so diligently to develop lease agreements with LifeWorks and the Reformed University Fellowship
- All those who spoke so meaningfully during worship in September and October about their own perspective on the church's vision for 2004 - the representatives of Christian Education (Marilyn Vache), the Deacons (Joe McMillan), the Trustees (John Moore), and Outreach (John Goff)
- The Coordinating Council, for its support of the new "visioning" process approach to budgeting/financial stewardship that we have adopted this year
- The Budget Committee, for the hours it has already put into making this new process work
- Our pastor Tom VandeStadt, who originally suggested the "visioning" process, led the way in its development, and tirelessly supported every effort to make the concept a reality in and for our church
Thank you, one and all!
Finally, if you haven't yet pledged your support of our church's vision for the new year - and you'd like to do so - there's still time. Our financial secretary, Lynne Lemley, will be glad to receive your pledge whenever you're ready to make it. See her at church, or call her at 336-1720.
Dennis Murphy & Sara Ross
Advent and Christmas Services,
And the Annual Christmas Party at the Oakes' Home
During Advent, we'll be anticipating the birth of Jesus by lighting advent candles during our worship service, and reading passages from Luke's Gospel that describe angelic visitations to Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary. On Sunday, December 21, our youth will be offering the gift of a Christmas pageant during our regular 11:00 am service. On the evening of December 21, we'll gather at church at 7:00 pm for a candlelight service with readings and carols. Then we'll head over to Pat and Mel Oake's home for their Annual Christmas party. On Christmas Day, we'll celebrate Holy Communion at 12:00 noon, and then gather in the Appel Room and open the doors for anyone who would like to join us for a great ham dinner.
Will be January 25 after worship. All annual reports are due to Trish NO LATER THAN January 12.
DECEMBER BIRTHDAYS
1 Sarah Moore
3 Sally E. Tomasek
6 Lisa Miriam Kirch
8 Robin Rosson
7 Jeffrey Lemley
10 Hester Novotny
12 Jennie Peet Ashton
Sarah Clarissa Kirch
13 Carol Ann Burlinson
Audrey Loomis
14 Jake Burlinson
15 Sara Ross
Gedeon Karasi Bukasa
20 Carol Barrett
28 Larissa Pickens
29 Lynn Loomis
30 Mouloud Randal Sennour
UCC OPEN AND AFFIRMING
TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION,
O & A WORKSHOP IN JANUARY
The Coordinating Council is currently taking the United Church of Christ's Open and Affirming (O & A) curriculum into consideration. The O & A curriculum provides UCC churches with a process of study and discussion on the issue of Christian faith and human sexuality. The goal of the curriculum is to bring churches to the point where they can vote on whether to become an Open and Affirming Church. In the UCC, being an Open and Affirming Church means the church explicitly and openly welcomes gay, lesbian, and bisexual people fully into the life and ministry of that church. While the Coordinating Council believes our church is implicitly open and affirming, it is considering whether our church should become explicitly Open and Affirming.
The Open and Affirming curriculum provides resources to help church members study and reflect on scripture, human sexuality, and human relationships from a Christian faith perspective. The goal is to provide a safe place for church members to honestly share, discuss, and reflect on these sensitive topics.
Members of the Coordinating Council are currently studying the O & A curriculum, and they are asking all the Boards of our church to study the curriculum as well. Board Chairs will be providing their Boards with written material.
The Coordinating Council would also like the members of our congregation to take this issue into prayerful consideration. Written materials from the curriculum will be made available in our church Library. Please borrow them, read them, and return them for someone else to read.
The South Central Conference is hosting a Workshop on O & A at Slumber Falls on January 10. The Coordinating Council is encouraging our members to attend this workshop to learn more about O & A. Please see the registration information enclosed in this edition of The Visitor.
The Coordinating Council will bring this issue before the congregation for a vote during our Annual Meeting (January 25, 2004). The church will be asked to vote on whether we should embark on the O & A process, using material from the O & A curriculum, with the ultimate goal being an all-church vote on whether to become an Open and Affirming Church.
Christian Education Matters
This year's Christmas Pageant will be held on December 21 during the Church service. Please contact Lisa Kirch, this year's Christmas Pageant coordinator, if you are interested in assisting with the pageant in some way, including with rehearsals, costumes, scenery, or music. Practices will begin after Thanksgiving. If you have school-age kids, please make every effort to assure their attendance at practices.
Adult Education is also thriving, with the following regularly-scheduled and upcoming events:
- Rev. Tom VandeStadt is leading Adult Sunday School each week at 10am.
- During the Advent/Christmas/Epiphany season, Tom VandeStadt will be leading a series centered around the works of Nikos Kazantzakis. The first session will be held after church on December 7, 2003.
- The Austin Forum is proving to be a stimulating series that has been well-received by all who participate. Please see the article about the Austin Forum for more information and details about upcoming fora.
A couple of dates to be aware of:
December 21 will be the Annual Cookie Exchange during the Fellowship hour. Bring some --- take some.
January 4 will be the Epiphany Potluck.
Michael Adams has a friend who cleans houses, when other work is not available, which it isn't. She's very thorough, and reasonably priced. If anyone knows of someone who needs that sort of help, they ought to call him at 892-6297 or 799-8553. He'll put them in touch with his friend, and do two people a favor.
Austin Forum
At The Congregational Church of Austin, UCC
The Austin Forum is designed to promote thinking about issues local, national, international and transcendent through encounters with people knowledgeable about a particular subject. The program will begin with a formal interview of the guest speaker and continue with questions from the audience.
This month, we will be exploring this issue:
Monday, December 8th -- Naim Ateek, Director of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem
Issue: Israel and Palestine -- Is this a historical hatred without resolution? Is there hope? Is there a plan?
CONCERTS IN OUR SANCTUARY
December 4 at 7:30: Horns of Texas, the UT brass quintet, consisting of two trumpets, tuba, French horn, and trombone
January 29: Jazz quartet
Spring: Hoping for singer/songwriters and similar good music.
These eclectic performances will entertain you and will benefit social action projects by Micah 6, a group of nine university-area churches. The current project is a food pantry for homeless and working poor citizens.
Your $15 (student $10) donation will be shared with the University Area Micah 6 Ministry Food Pantry.
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