You Can Take The Guidos and Guidettes Out of Jersey, But You Can't Take Jesus Out Of Anywhere...

Yes, that is the back of none other than Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino's head. Really, his haircut should come as not surprise. Look how often you see the cross hanging from the necks of the stars of MTV's Jersey Shore. The boys especially wear rosaries quite often (which I understand to be a no no for Catholics?) and Ronnie of course has a HUGE black tattoo of a cross on his back.

I'm going to be bringing up Jersey Shore and its cast in this week's sermon. Of course this means I'll be yapping on about the absurdity of "reality television" and the ridiculous ideals, values and behaviors that shows like Jersey Shore promotes and propose as how reality should be understood. I'm also just a wee bit off-put by the continuous presence of the cross of Christ in the show, and the continuous absence of Christ-likeness.

Or so one might think.

Whether I mention it in the sermon or not - I need to point out one aspect of Jersey Shore that I love (apart from the rest of it that I love as a guilty pleasure).

Every Sunday night it seems, the entire crew gather as a family at a big table and share a home-made meal together. Regardless of whatever spats have occurred or whatever resentment remains, they still come together and share a meal. And at that table you often see forgiveness, reconciliation and (dysfunctional though it may be) love. Remind you of another table? If not, then you haven't been paying attention at Communion - cause that's what's supposed to happen there. The Church, since the beginning has gathered around a meal, for the past millennia plus celebrated in a simple two-courses; bread and wine.

And really, should we look down on Mike, Ronnie, Snookie, Jenni, Pauly, Sammy, Vinny or Angelina? Is this group of sinners really that different from us - just another group of sinners that gather around a table and find forgiveness and love? (Yes, even Angelina...)

I'm just waiting for one of the Jersey Shore girls to bring home some strange middle-eastern lookin' dude to that dinner table - and watch him grab the garlic bread and tear off pieces, pass them around and say "take, eat, this is my body..."

A Meaningful Christmas

So I'm already thinking about worship for this Christmas. It's actually a big deal because when I say "for Christmas" I'm mean the four Sundays of Advent and Christmas Eve.

I love most of the things we do at Christmas time.

- the lighting of the Advent wreath

- candlelight Christmas Eve service

- familiar Christmas songs

- familiar Christmas scriptures

But I want to make sure that we don't fall into simple sentimentalism here. Christmas should be meaningful! I mean this is the celebration of Jesus' Birth - and given our theology, that's a BIG deal!

Remember who we Christians say Jesus is? Yeah...he's God in human flesh. The first Christmas was a universe-shaking event, it literally changed everything. This is the day that God became human - for us, for all creation. God became a living, breathing, cooing, drooling, pooping baby boy named Jesus.

That's pretty meaningful. Christmas says so much to us about a God - OUR God - who loves his creatures so much that He was willing to become one of us. This isn't a God that stays remote up in heaven, not caring, not involved - our God became one of US.

So to commemorate this...we buy crap.

Seriously, we (and I include myself here) buy stuff we don't need, that really has no use but to satisfy our own lust for material possessions.

And I know - a pastor ranting against materialism at this point is old news. Churches have been seeking to combat what Christmas has become in our secular culture with what Christmas should be about for like...ever. But t-shirts saying "Jesus is the reason for the season" doesn't do much. And it seems that the Church's activity has only become a part of this big meaningless Christmas. All the candles and decorations and music points to Jesus Christ - but we've sentimentalized it all.

How can we have a MEANINGFUL CHRISTMAS that truly truly celebrates the coming of Jesus - that reflects the love of our God who came to US as one of us to save us?