 Greetings friends. Welcome to CTUCC Conference Cast for December 19, 2013, the regular podcast of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. Whoever you are and wherever you may be on life's journey at this very moment, you are welcome here. We begin this week's conference cast with this meditation from the Reverend Dr. Michael Seba, Southwest Regional Minister. In his Gospel, Matthew tells the story of Jesus' birth by focusing on Mary and Joseph. When Mary learns that she is expecting a child who is not his, Joseph resolves to end their engagement but quietly. It takes a dream of an angel to persuade him to stand with her and be parent to the boy called Immanuel, or God with us. Luke owns Christmas. Go to any Christmas pageant, listen to any Carol, watch any movie about Jesus' birth. All you get is Luke, embellished by over 2,000 years of storytelling, the journey to Bethlehem, no room at the inn, sheltering in the stable with farm animals, the baby in a manger, shepherds in the fields, the heavenly hosts singing glory. Of course Matthew owns Epiphany, but that's a different feast. In contrast, Matthew's birth narrative is sparse. You couldn't make a Christmas pageant out of it if you tried. But there is one absolutely beautiful artistic rendering of Matthew's story of Jesus' birth. It's in the film The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, produced by Pierre Paolo Pasolini in 1964. I invite you to watch the whole film online on YouTube, or to watch from minute 3 to 6 minutes and 45 seconds to see how Pasolini dramatizes the story. At the beginning of the scene, Mary stands outside her house. As the camera pans her body, we see that she is obviously pregnant. As she stares at Joseph, her face reveals uncertainty and a bit of fear, but also displays a conviction that she has not done anything wrong. Joseph appears to be holding in his anger at this discovery. His lips look like they are about to move, but he cannot form the words. Eventually he turns and walks away. As he leaves, some other women join Mary in the background, as if in solidarity with her. Throughout the scene, no words are spoken between Mary and Joseph. Joseph walks to the town square. As adults do business and children play, he lies down and falls asleep. The angel who appears to Joseph is portrayed by a woman. Nice touch. Her message is both an explanation and a command. I sense she would not respond favorably to any objections Joseph might raise. Joseph knows what he must do. He hurries back to Mary's house. She is still waiting outside. The camera focuses on Mary's face. As she realizes that Joseph will fulfill his commitment to the marriage, we see her begin to smile. He will all be okay. Matthew describes Joseph as a righteous man. For Joseph, this meant following the commandments of God as he understood them. But Mary's experience and the witness of the angel offer him a different perspective. God is able to do things outside the limits of the laws that God has created. When this happens, we need to be open to possibilities that may challenge our settled opinions about what is right and what is wrong. The angel tells Joseph that the mission of Jesus is to save his people from their sins. One of the ways we are saved from the consequences of sin is through reconciliation with God and with one another. Matthew's birth narrative is a story of reconciliation. Joseph is reconciled with Mary and with God when he accepts that God is capable of righteousness beyond the conventional notions of right and wrong. The first act of salvation achieved through Jesus, even before his birth, is the reconciliation of his parents. This reconciliation makes it possible for them to complete the marriage commitment they made to each other. The presence of Emmanuel, God with us, enables us to restore, renew, refresh, and maintain relationships that are strained. Do we need to ask or offer forgiveness? Do we need to be reconciled with anyone? Do we need to look beyond rules that only serve to exclude? Do we need to be more open to a God who is free to act in ways that seem to defy conventional wisdom? As the angel told Joseph, let's not be afraid to do what God calls us to do. Here is a prayer for this week. Reconciling God, however much we try to put you in a box, you will not stay there. Help us, as the body of Christ, truly be a healing presence in and for the world. In Jesus' name, amen. In the news this week, Conference Minister the Reverend Kent Solati offered Christmas greetings yesterday in a short video released through our YouTube channel. Please do view it in its entirety, but here are some highlights. The little babe in the manger who's crying, no crying he makes, I'm not sure that's the Jesus that I'm preparing for. Do you think Jesus may have alerted his parents that he was hungry with a cry? I also think that Jesus grows up and becomes someone who doesn't fulfill the expectations of Messiah the way that the culture did. He wasn't a military leader, he didn't lead by conquest, he was born to unmarried parents who were dirt poor, and he came to literally turn the world upside down. I also love music, and so the traditions of playing, my Christmas or my Advent preparations will not be complete unless I've listened to Handel's soulful Messiah, which was produced about 20 years or so ago, which is a very different rendering than the classic traditional Messiah, and I have to listen to that several times before I feel ready for Christmas. And what is your wish for this Christmas season? My wish is really a very simple one, and one that is not original, but I do really believe in my heart of hearts that this vision of Isaiah, where we would beat our swords into plowshares would come true, that the ways of the world, which includes some very violent reactions in our culture, that we would learn that is not the way, that the Prince of Peace has come to bring God's shalom. It's my prayer and my wish this Christmas that that message would touch more people through our lives, through the way we live, and through the changes that we make. My Christmas wish as well is that we would recognize that we need one another, that there is an interdependence that exists on this earth, that human beings need each other, we need the created order, and we need to make a difference in this world. We need a new zeal for the gospel and God's extravagant love. On behalf of the staff of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, I would like to wish each one of you a very blessed Christmas. This is a season where we proclaim that God's love comes to us in a baby, in a vulnerable way. And so it is a joy for us to be part of this family, this season, this holy time. We wish God's extravagant love and blessings to be with you and yours in this Christmas season. God bless you. Last Saturday morning at 9 o'clock, falling snow outside the windows did not keep many members and friends of the New Town Congregational Church UCC away. As they gathered for a special service of remembrance, one year after violence took the lives of a gunman, his mother, six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and 20 children. New Town's faith communities each held their own services. But at the Congregational Church, Senior Pastor the Reverend Matthew Kreben included other leaders in the morning's prayers, including Conference Minister the Reverend Kent Salati, Ramayesh Aul Praaver of Congregation Adath Israel, the Reverend Samuel Saylor of Blackwell AME Zion Church in Hartford, the Reverend Henry Brown of Hartford's Mothers United Against Violence, Retired Associate Pastor the Reverend Janice Tolukian, and Alyssa DeWolf, the Church's Minister of Faith Formation. Even in the midst of darkness, we pray that your light will continue to guide us on our way, Kreben said, and your promise of peace will continue to call to us and summon us out of our fears and our apathy and our despair and help us to find life and to find it abundantly in and through you, you who are our light and our hope. The final print issue of contact will arrive in mailboxes this week, and the online version is posted to our website at ctucc.org. Our theme this issue is telling the story, and so we have stories about the importance of storytelling, about coming to faith, about ways to make stories into reality, and about new media with which to tell stories. Also on our website this week, you'll find a story and photos of the Victorian Christmas held at Westfield Congregational Church UCC in Danielson. The last of those services is this coming Sunday evening at 7 p.m. There are lots of new stories from the recent contact, of course, and the full video of Kent Solati's Christmas greetings. You'll find them all along with the latest headlines at ctucc.org slash news. This is the season of the Friends of the Conference annual appeal. The conference is an extension of your local church ministry, enabling us to reach out in love to each other and to those in need. That is why we ask you to give generously, even sacrificially, to our Friends of the Conference campaign, so we can be in ministry together, transforming lives in the name of Christ. To be part of the new things we imagine God doing through us, visit us at ctucc.org slash donate. In the new year, Stepping Stones returns on January 14th, with past them the football, the care and support of volunteers in Southington. Basics of Christian Education, a new program that will enable participants to launch an effective faith formation ministry in their local church, runs three Saturdays, beginning January 18th. Hartford Seminary and Asylum Hill Congregational Church have come together to offer the Bible and the Quran on January 29th in Hartford. Comfort food for the journey to a day retreat for clergy women will be February 4th in Hartford. Mark your calendars now with the first of March, when we hold Super Saturday, a day of workshops, fellowship and celebration for church members and leaders, featuring a keynote address from author Diana Butler-Bass. We're holding this in concert with the Massachusetts Conference this year and will be in Ludlow, Massachusetts. Registration is open for the New England UCC Women's Celebration to be held March 28th through 30th in Portland, Maine. There's a discount available for those who registered before January 15th, so get that done right now. Learn more at UCCWomenCelebration.org and you can always learn more about what's coming up in the Connecticut Conference by visiting us at ctucc.org slash events. We're closing today with another special prayer offered to us by the young people who participated in last spring's maple sugaring retreat weekend at Silver Lake Conference Center. With the fresh snow of two recent storms gleaming around us, we give thanks for this season. God, your presence engulfs me. I hear you in the stream babbling beside me. I see your touch in the bark of the trees. The snow sparkles like a diamond. I am one with the trees, the cool air, the crunchy snow that blankets the ground. I see my reflection in the river and I see you standing next to me. Everything was created and is living because of you. When I think I am alone, I am really at God's side. Amen. And that brings this conference cast to a close. Thanks to Michael Siebel for his reflection and GarageBand for our music. Special thanks today to David Jarvis for his contribution of our Christmas music. Primary funding for conference cast comes from your congregation's gifts to our church's wider mission, basic support, changing lives through the United Church of Christ. This is Eric Anderson, the Minister of Communications and Technology for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, praying that your days this week may be filled with the presence, the guidance and the grace of God. This is Eric Anderson again with a program note. With Christmas coming next Wednesday, I plan to release conference cast early in the day on Tuesday, Christmas Eve, if all goes well. The following week I will be on vacation. So the first conference cast of 2014 will be posted on January 9th. And may God bless you all.