Hellam, PA

St. James Lutheran Church

Dear Christian Friends, 

 

This letter is being written as I'm preparing for Reformation Sunday, October 26.  The following Sunday, "All Saints’ Sunday," is one of my favorite opportunities to preach.  Then we are just a few Sundays away from Advent, and long before I'm ready for it, Christmas will be here.

 

The Hellam Ministerium has decided to join other churches for Thanksgiving, and at this time the plan is to have a musical celebration of Thanksgiving.  More details will be available soon.

 

We expect to follow the same tradition for Christmas Eve that we enjoyed last year.  That's kind of like saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  Of course, the army says, "If it ain't broke, keep fixin' it 'til it IS broke!"  Speaking about the army, this war has done one thing rather efficiently:  served as a proving ground for many new and improved weapons of destruction, and their accompanying artifacts.  The real accomplishment would be if we could deal with our enemies by diplomatic means, and avoid war altogether.  Those hundreds of billions of dollars we spent on destruction could have been used for some of the world's great needs. 

 

However, if the signals are being interpreted correctly, we just may need all the weapons and weaponry expertise we can get.  Both sides of this global ideological dichotomy are predicting WWIII, and everybody knows that such a war could obliterate civilization and the human race.  However, the way things have been looking and sounding lately there isn't much "civil" left in civilization anyway.  Even the two men who are candidates for the most prestigious office in the world have voluntarily disgraced themselves with an inflammatory campaign of shame (on "me").

 

This is an appropriate time for us to delve into some realistic thinking about these matters, with Veterans' Day coming up, followed by Thanksgiving and the celebration of Christmas which is supposed to be God's greatest attempt at bringing peace to earth.  If God really was attempting to bring peace on earth, which the Bible seems to be saying over and over again, it has turned out to be His second greatest failure.  The greatest of all failures, ironically, being God's attempt to create a living being in His own image.  Whose fault is that?  Is there anything we can do about it?   That reminds me, don't forget we will be having Holy Communion on Reformation Sunday and All Saints’ Sunday.  Boy, speaking of irony!!  Well, I'll be looking for you Sunday for a little Reformation.

 

          

Peace and Love,

Donald B. Warner

Interim Pastor

Pastor’s Message

November/December Newsletter