{"id":36600,"date":"2013-01-04T18:29:41","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T18:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/the_episcopal_bishop_of_atlantas_2012_christmas_eve_sermon\/"},"modified":"2013-01-04T18:29:41","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T18:29:41","slug":"the_episcopal_bishop_of_atlantas_2012_christmas_eve_sermon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=36600","title":{"rendered":"The Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta&#39;s 2012 Christmas Eve Sermon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What is God like? God is like Christmas! It\u2019s just like God to get the good news to the shepherds first. Who were these guys? They were working the late-night shift. Day laborers but at night. Guys trying to make a buck. No pedigrees. Outside of the city.<br \/>\nOutside of the system.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s who gets the light show, the angelic choir concert and the word first. By right the announcement should have happened in the temple, with all the people like me standing around. But it doesn\u2019t. And we can\u2019t tell God how God should be God. Isaiah said it best, \u201cOur thoughts are not his thoughts; neither are our ways his ways.\u201d\u009d What can God possibly be up to by this? It has to be that God wants to jar our sense of order so we might finally be open to his order, \u201cto a more excellent way.\u201d\u009d And new ways and new openness are born in the imagination. God wants our imaginations. That\u2019s got to be it.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.episcopalatlanta.org\/images\/customer-files\/\/RCW_Christmas_2012.pdf\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is God like? God is like Christmas! It\u2019s just like God to get the good news to the shepherds first. Who were these guys? They were working the late-night shift. Day laborers but at night. Guys trying to make<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=36600\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,48,575,187,66,435,184,439,372],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglican-episcopal","category-christian-life-church-life","category-christmas","category-church-year-liturgical-seasons","category-episcopal-church-tec","category-ministry-of-the-ordained","category-parish-ministry","category-preaching-homiletics","category-tec-bishops"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}