PENNSYLVANIA Words of love, hope from pulpits

One pastor planned a sermon critical of Christmas commercialism.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Church leaders around the state said they would mostly stick to traditional Christmas sermons without specifically touching on issues such as the war in Iraq and continued heightened terrorist warnings, though peace and love run through their messages.
Many sermons will incorporate the book of Luke, with its account of Jesus' birth in a manger after Mary and Joseph returned to Bethlehem to be counted for the census and of angels' telling shepherds of the birth.
Pastor Roy Bender of Witmer Heights Mennonite Church in Lancaster said his sermon last week focused on how the politics of God and man differ, with man's often being self-serving, so for Christmas Eve, he planned to share an updated version of Luke using a recent syndicated column.
In Leonard Pitts Jr.'s version, the angel tells the shepherds of stores selling wondrous goods such as $29 DVD players at Wal-Mart and finding "in thy frenzied acquisition of things, a measure of peace, some proof of love." At the end, a shepherd asks whether shopping is all that is there. The angel responds, having almost forgotten, that a savior was born.
"It's humorous, but it's got some pretty healthy truths," the Rev. Mr. Bender said. "Christmas has become shopping, shopping, shopping."
God's love
Ronald Rice, pastor of the Advent Moravian Church in Bethlehem -- the 460-member congregation was founded Christmas Day in 1863 -- said he would use the Gospel of John. "The Sunday sermon is about preaching. The Christmas sermon is about Jesus," Rice said.
"The [Christmas] message is, God spoke his word of love, that we are his special children and that he loves us," he said.
"What I'm looking at is for people to really slow down from everything," said the Rev. Anthony Mandile of the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Scranton. "Basically, it's taking time to read God's word. It's taking 10 minutes a day to read the Word and focus."
Hope amid events
Others will touch on current events.
"I think whenever you give a homily, the context is the life situation of whatever your congregation is facing," said the Rev. Roger Statnick, vicar general of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg.
His message would be that "despite the darkness and the fear and the anxiety that there is in our world, the coming of Christ is a sign for us of hope. ... The whole point of believing in Christ is we do not become victims of darkness."
The Rev. Valerie Mapstone Ackerman of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lancaster said she delivers an annual sermon on the first Sunday of the new year providing a retrospective of the past 12 months. This year, she plans to condemn the war in Iraq.
"Our particular congregation has been very outspoken against the use of violence to resolve problems, so I'll continue to support that message," said the Rev. Ms. Ackerman, who grew up in Pennsylvania and returned recently from Oklahoma. "Of course, some people consider such issues political, but I consider them moral issues."
The Unitarian Universalist church is a theologically liberal denomination and an outgrowth of the Protestant Reformation.