tv Viewpoint NBC December 20, 2015 5:30am-6:01am EST
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. good morning, i'm aaron gilchrist and welcome to "viewpoint." our topic today the christmas holiday. and spreading messages of hope, peace and joy. in 2015, those ideas are pretty defendant -- difficult for some to hold on. joining us to reverend sanders and reverend karen brau, the senior pastor at luther place memorial church. and reverend braxton for the ame church. and thank you all for being here this morning as we celebrate the christmas season. and i'd like to start with just sort of defining what this time of year is about. what skrms christmas is about.
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i know we talk about hope and peace and the birth of christ. what is the christmas season as you define it supposed to be about? >> well, we go back to the birth of christ. born in a rough time. a very difficult season. and the theological point of view is that god sent himself into the world to bring hope, and peace and joy. and to everybody. that is the basis of celebration. i bring you good tidings of peace. >> i would imagine you agree. that we should try to center our thought this is time of year. >> well, the birth of jesus is the main event. and in the gospels we get two different kinds of scenarios of
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how people respond. we get the shepherds having this revelation of light and music and a message. and they run to the manger to find this baby. and then we have in matthew's gospel, the majii who come from the far east following a star and was because they are willing to follow the star it leads them to the child and they bring them this magnificent gifts of frankincense and mur. and there is joy and universality peace in the birth of the christ child. >> and those are beautiful ideas people can hold on to this time of year. and then there is to be perfectly honest the other side of christmas, where we talk more about the shopping and the crush of people in the malls and the
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"what i want for christmas "aspe" aspect of it. do you feel like something is lost there, as though our communities is are not reallyholding onto the most important parts of the season is this. >> i think if we are able to reside more in the story of jesus, just as my colleagues have described that there is something about this love coming into the world. and the gift of light and love and wanting to share that with each other. and i think we get really sort of out of whack how to manifest that. and i think people do feel a lot of pressure around it and i think people sometimes can get caught in making sort of lists of things that may not give the benefit that we would hope that they would. that would be to i think bring life that is whole and well and balanced. and nurture good relationships
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between people. >> there is a third point i thought she was going to mention. and that is the chaos that this birth child brought about into the world. the king who was very disturbed that, quote, the messiah had come and sending the majii to find them and after them the killing and murdering of many -- of children. so there was another dimension. but i think helps us to understand that here we are many, many years later still struggling in the celebration and the integrity of the christmas story with world chaos and confusion and destruction. >> and we're going talk a lot more about that in a literal sense later but is part of the point there that people need to work that much harder to focus on those other aspects of hope and joy and love as opposed to some of the other things that we
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also can't ignore at this time of year? >> absolutely. i mean, we have to work at maintaining the integrity of the christmas story. >> all right. a nice note to end up on. we're going talk more about these ideas and how we can look at christmas in the light of everything else going on in the world right now and in a lot of people's personal lives. "viewpoint" continues in a moment.
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and welcome back to "viewpoint." as we continue our conversation with some of the religious leaders of our community about this christmas season and hope and peace. and i want to focus a little bit more at this point on some of the fear that people are dealing with. particularly in this year. we had group of faith leaders meet at georgetown this past week to talk about sort of trying to fight intolerance. as we've talked so much about
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terrorist attacks in paris. we talked about the attacks in california a couple of weeks ago. so faith leaders have gotten together and tried to encourage people to be more tolerant and so sort of search for peace, to be peaceful in our communities. do you feel like people are listening to that message about peace and tolerance? >> i think it is very clear if you read the story. and as religious leaders and particularly as christians, we have a responsibility to take ownership of the story. and the story itself gives us a clear message of the -- that god sent a child into the world to bring peace, to bring light into darkness. that is how it is met with immediate order of genocide. and the shepherds even are terrified when they see the light and they hear the message. so you have got the darkness. you have got the fear. you have got the tailor right in the story. so we've got to make sure that
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we message our message of peace and our message of love is against a backdrop of oppression, terrorism, taxation -- the same kind of things that we're dealing with today. >> so as these issues continue to pop up and they pop up in different places and effect different community, is part of your work then to keep pushing that message, keep pushing that message of tolerance and peace? >> man, what would happen if we stopped? >> yes. >> [ laughter ] >> so the one piece that rings out. is that even though they were threatened, the wise men moved on with this great hope that they would find this savior. the shepherds in the field are told don't be fearful. go. and they run hastily with hope they would find this baby.
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what would happen if we in the church faith community today stopped the message and did no , really preach hard at don't give up hope? >> what we continue to learn and we continue to teach is that love of god does allow you to let go of fear and to be in a way in the world that allows you to just like my my colleagues just said, to bring that love, and to bring that light. and the other thing we continue to teach is we continue to practice what does that mean to be tolerant. it has to deal with the kroo words you use. and we can analyze a lot of the words used by a lot of people all over the media and are really destructed and allow to kindle fear or allay it and act in giving of ourselves and what we have. there are plenty of people around us in this world that are really every day live in fear because they don't have a place to live and they don't have
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enough food to eat right in our city. so there are ways to practice it. and we have to teach that as religious leaders. >> so do you feel like -- and i hate to think of this. but do you feel like the fear that is out there sometimes diminishes or damages people's faith? >> well the clear statement in the christmas story is fear not. >> and there is no reason to say that unless there is a lot of stuff out there that is scary. there are a lot of things out there that you should be concerned about. but the message is fear not because guns got your back. and if we can convey that message and not just to our little group or the people who share our particular tradition, but it is a universal message. the majii come from a far place and they don't have fear. but here is the message about immigration, how you treat people who are different dpsmt they come in and then you are
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fearful of them, how you respond to them. and the way it goes, the genocidal order out and out the two-year-old boys and younger are killed. that is the message for jesus himself to seek refuge. they seek refuge in a foreign country and they receive him. it was a message of hospitality. >> all these people were killed in a christmas party in san bernardino. and you have and a recruiting center who are being shot and how can i not be afraid given all the random things happening? what do you say to someone who says i can't not be afraid is this. >> you say that the light is shining in the darkness. >> and you say that even though you don't understand all of this peace, that the god that we serve, the god who sent this son into the world is still in charge of our world and that things will work out.
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things are working out. even though we don't see the picture clearly, there is a bigger picture. and so you hope and you rest and you joy in that bigger picture. and so you can walk out your house and say god is with me. immanua emmanuel. you can go to sleep and night and know god is with you. and that is assurance in the hope that i think drives people in our world today. >> and you all use the word "hope" quite a bit here. stay with us. back with more on "viewpoint"? just a second.
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braxton. we want to speak about a theme hope. and there are a lot of people this time of year starting to take stock of their lives. and in some cases they feel as though they have fallen on hard times they are hungry in many cases. homeless in many cases. and hope might be hard to come by. what is the message for folks who are feeling hopeless? >> well, i think it is to really share or as preacher and to people around us that we become hope in people's lives. it is an idea in some ways but it becomes manifest among us as we reach out and share. and i think we have to tell the people who we serve that it is -- it is up to us to bring that love of god into the world
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and to be hope for other people and to be with people who are in despair. you know, sometimes we have a hard time i think going to difficult places with people. but allowing ourselves to be present and to continue to be hopeful with people who are in despair. >> and i think the other part t sharing part makes a difference. >> yeah. >> you will find that the christian faith -- and that maybe a slight part that is not so good about it. but the christian faith is the biggest institution in the world sharing in this time of year. the angel tree t food baskets, the meals, the clothes. it provides for us that moment when we can really display that we love you, we care about you.
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the homeless, the people without jobs. at christmas, that joy and that sharing and instilling that hope that there is someone in the world who really does care about your plight. >> i think we understand then what we can do to share hope. what do you say to people who are on the receiving end of that, who have a hard time accepting what someone might be trying to share with them or who don't understand or who aren't able to turn that sharing into some sort of a personal hope in their lives? >> well i think that the season is despite the commodifcommodif. it puts us in a giving mode. but the giving is not just material. there is a strong message also
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of hospitality in the story. we envision there is this mean inkeeper and there is no room in the inn. so they are turned away. but think of it this way. here you have a family who is about to -- the mother is about to give birth and they knock on your door. would you offer them hospitality? in the story they get the hospitality even though they end up in the company of animals. but then there is this larger sense in which there is so much openness. the hope that people are looking for is also, is there a place for me in this world. and the story sends a clear message. yes there is, even if it is not where you expect it to be received. there's a place for you in the world. >> that is deep. >> i want to ask you about prayer. you know, i think we -- at this time of year when bad things happen, when people have fallen on rough times, you know, i'm
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praying for you is what people often say. and, you know, when there is a loss in the family. "i'm praying for you." what do you say to people who s say, well, is god listening? my reality hasn't changed. it's been a year, or five years and my reality hasn't changed. what do you say to folks? >> most americans even though they may not go to church and don't consider themselves a part of the institutional church, they are still praying people. and it is i think safe to say that christians, even non christians have not lost the sense that there is a higher power and that through a prayer
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life of some sort they communicate with that power and feel a sense of comfort. and peace that they have communicated with their god, our god, as we know god, in some way. thus they walk out every day of a sense of -- back to our word -- of "hope" and fulfil fulfillment that life has meaning and purpose. >> and i think the praying we do has a lot of what we suffer from personally. yet a lot of people what people suffer from in our world and continue to bear a lot of burden are these structural things that aren't necessarily influenced by our individual prayers because they are across the brand. >> okay. >> okay. quick break here and
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who coined the term "side bread?" because there's nothing "side" about this bread. it may look like the moon. but it's the star of the show. unleash the power of dough. give it a pop. that sound. like nails on a chalkboard. but listen to this: (family talking) that's a different kind of sound. the sound of the weekend. unleash the power of dough. give it a pop.
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welcome back to "viewpoint." in just a few seconds we have left i want to give you all an opportunity to share your messages of the season about how people can in our every day lives spread, joy and peace and hope and love. >> well we first of all emphasize that this is the season of giving. but when we recall the story, we know that we should put aside our fear as the shepherds did and seek, based on the message that we get, the wise men followed the light that we always should follow and see and know that god has a light for us. and then just the joy. celebrate and welcome others into your celebration of life on a daily basis. >> wonderful message. >> yeah and my message i have 42 churches on my district. and my message for each one of them this season of the year, to make sure that when the celebration is over, the celebration really begins. and for each of them to share
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the same christmas spirit throughout the year with themselves, with each other and with their communities. >> and i think my message is with the joy and the love also to really take a pause and to really try to be, you know, present to yourself and present to the people that you are with. and i think through that kindness and compassion arrives in a way sometimes is beyond our understanding. >> are there other points -- obviously we think about christmas and these things are sort of easier to think about. but are there other occasions in the year you find people are particularly aware of these ideas about love and spreading ho hope, that you encourage others? you know what, if you feel you are losing track here is a
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saying for you. >> for me it is really easter, where you really see the giving off love and the power of liove and life. >> i would say the winter solsti solstice. the longest nights and the shortest days. the days are going to get longer and the night is going to get shorter. >> what a great way to wrap up. i appreciate you all being here. thanks so much. >> merry christmas. >> merry christmas. >> thank you so much. that is our "viewpoint" for this morning. we appreciate you joining us as well. have a good a day.
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oh, you're going to need your raincoats today. temperatures are dropping. tom will tell you when. a teen is killed just before the winter break. how his senior class is reacting. less than 24 hours after plane crash, we have an update for you. good morning. welcome to "news4 today." i'm adam tuss. angie is off, you might have noticed. this morning northbound elapses are closed between northwest and the interchange. all traffic is being diverted into the thirdee
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