Many of us look forward to days like today because we are looking for the happiness that is possible in a brand new year.  Maybe this New Year can be different.  Instead of waiting for the new year to come, perhaps we can commit to becoming the new year.  In this first episode of 2022, we'll explore the transformation that is possible when we explore the new you in this new year.

As Americans, we tend to overspend, over-decorate, overeat and - in general - overconsume. In this final week of Advent, we’re coming to terms with what it means to overdo things during the holiday season.  The innkeeper in the Christmas story might be the first clue we need to look at on our path towards simplicity.

We all know that picking out the right gift is hard work.  We don't always give the right gift, and we definitely don't always receive the right gift.  And being on the receiving of the wrong gift is frustrating, and disheartening.  When Gabriel announced the good news of Jesus to Mary, she felt a lot like this.  She felt like she was receiving the wrong gift at the wrong time.  In spite of her frustration, she found joy, and can so can we as we learn how to care for the unwanted gifts in our life.

Joseph’s Christmas story is one about how to unwrap the Christmas gift placed in his lap.  Joseph had choices when he faced the reality of Mary’s miraculous pregnancy.  Follow the law, dismiss her quietly or his own third way...embrace the child as his own.  Our question this Christmas is similar.  How can we embrace the Christ-child this season by adjusting how we unwrap Christmas?

Every year people unpack Christmas.  They get the boxes down, they either excitedly or begrudgingly prepare for the season.  Zechariah was not sure he could believe the season was coming and was silenced until it arrived, as a way of inviting him to reflect on where God’s Spirit might be moving.  Elizabeth on the other hand simply prepared step by step and when Mary arrived, she was the first one to celebrate with her. Though each approached the season in different ways, each one was surprised by the gift that awaited them.  In this episode, we invite you to discover what surprises God may have packed away for you in this season of anticipation.

Individual identity is often created from what we are not.  And what we are not lies on the other side of an imaginary boundary.  These boundaries become tools of isolation, separation, and ostracization.  This is why Jesus reframed sin around the boundaries. He didn't focus on unclean people. He highlights unrighteous partitions.  These partitions create different classes of people (clean and unclean), and they set the stage for some of the greatest atrocities in all of history.

One of the most painful legacies of 20th century American Christianity is purity culture.  This culture was built on the premise that contact plants corruption and avoidance is the only solution.  The result of this worldview is that while all sin might be equal, not all sin has been experienced in equal ways.  This inequity has led to trauma and this trauma has left a trail of tears.  This week, we'll explore a new path of moral engagement that calls us beyond the purity paradigm.

The incarnation event is one of the most shocking and disgust-inducing events in all of Christian theology.

The idea that the creator and sustainer of all things would dip into the realm of mortality is shameful.  It seems this way because when God takes on flesh, God takes on human need.  To live in our bodies is to take on the daily fight against decay, and to recognize our neediness.  Each time, we avoid the full weight of the incarnation, we overlook our neediness.  When we overlook our own needs, we quickly overlook the needs of others.

We avoid infection to avoid our own mortality.  We find ourselves disgusted with anything that reminds us of our inevitable fate.  But as Norman Brown reminds us, "In the last analysis Christian theology must either accept death as a part of life or abandon the body."

Humans are naturally conditioned to avoid infection.  It's gross.  It's dirty.  It's disgusting.  And disgusting things are always avoided things.  As it turns out, this natural inclination might be the very thing that needs to be avoided in a church that is marked by mercy instead of sacrifice.  In this episode of Salem on the Go, we'll examine those things that disgust us in light of the boundary-crossing mercy that we are all called to.