Month: December 2016

What It’s All About

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resurrection-lightEarly on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”… 

 11But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20: 1-2, 11-18)

These hours have been such a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions.  But in this moment, I am beginning to see what it was all about.  I want to hold her and comfort her and explain it all but Jesus’ young friend Mary is running around with a mix of hysteria and excitement.  Maybe she, too, is beginning to understand.  I always knew who he was, knew from that surreal night when the angel came.  I probably would have thought I was losing it but Joseph had had a dream too.   Oh, that seems so long ago and yet, I remember it like it happened just a second ago. No one really understood.  No one ever understood.  But we did.  We knew who he was.  But not until this moment did I really grasp it.

I hope that the world does not take this as a do-over of some sort.  Because it is all part of it—everything up to this moment and everything that comes to be.  All of time and all of space and all creation points to this and is illuminated by it.  All of those generations that carried the story to me and the generations that stretch out beyond where I will ever see are in this moment.  I now understand that that strange brilliance that led us to Bethlehem and then stayed with us through the night that he was born has been with me always.  And he showed me that.  But I didn’t understand until now.

The memories come flooding back to me now—more than three decades of memories.  They will take several days to process.  But now they are not memories wrapped in grief.  I understand that they are the story—his story, my story, Joseph’s story, the world’s story.  God came into the world and walked with me.  God invited me to dance with the Divine, to touch, to love, to hold the Godself.  There was nothing special about me.  I have always been so ordinary.  But now I see that my life is an incredible mix of the ordinary and the sacred.  God has come.  And now I understand that God was always here.  And will be forevermore. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.  Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed.”  I do feel blessed.  I pray that the world will begin to understand.

There was, indeed, something I had missed about Christianity, and now all of a sudden I could see what it was.  It was the Resurrection!  How could I have been a church historian and a person of prayer who loved God and still not known that the most fundamental Christian reality is not the suffering of the cross but the life it brings?…The foundation of the universe for which God made us, to which God draws us, and in which God keeps us is not death, but joy.  (Roberta Bondi)

FOR TODAY:  Begin to make room.  There’s more to the story than you thought.

Peace to you in this often-hectic week,

Shelli

Into Our Midst

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abraham-sarah-isaacAn account of the genealogy* of Jesus the Messiah,* the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, 4and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6and Jesse the father of King David.

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph,* 8and Asaph* the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos,* and Amos* the father of Josiah, 11and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, 15and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.* 17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah,*fourteen generations.  (Matthew 1: 1-17)

So, have you ever read those verses?  Or have you just skipped over them to get to Joseph’s dream and get the show on the road?  Have you just skipped over them to get to the beginning of the story?  Oh, drat…you missed the beginning of the story!  The writer known as Matthew is so careful to include it, so careful to bring all that came before into the story so that there is no doubt who Jesus is.  More importantly, there is no doubt who these generations upon generations of God’s children are.  Jesus did not just drop out of the sky like some sort of divine UPS package.  God did not come into the world as Emmanuel, as “God-with-us”, separate from who we are.  God came into our midst—not our beginning—our midst.  God came into the midst of who we are.  God came into our messy and chaotic lives and made a home.  God came to Abraham and to Aram; God came to Aminadab and Boaz; God came to some guy named Salathiel, a no-name Bible character that had a life, that followed God and worshipped and got up and went to work to support his family so that Zerubbabel, who we also don’t know, could have a life.  God came to Sarah and Rebekah and Rachel and Tamar and Ruth and Mary and about 36 other women because regardless of whether or not the Scriptures named their name, they were called and responded and walked the journey that we continue.

This story, this story of God and how God came to be in our midst is our story.  And though we often spend a good part of Advent looking ahead, waiting, waiting, waiting, the story has been happening all along.  Advent reminds us that we are not waiting for the story to happen but rather entering a story that is and will be forevermore.

I have a certain fascination of my ancestry.  It is a way of connecting to who I am.  It is a way of discovering who I am meant to be and what it is I am called to carry for a while and then hand off to those that come after me.  I have not been fortunate enough to have children of my own (except a couple of black labs).  But these lines of generations are not single strands.  They are awkward and messy and unwieldy and sometimes hard to read and follow.  Perhaps God made them a little murky so that we would be reminded that we are all connected.  We are all children of God, walking our leg of the journey until we cannot walk anymore.  And in that moment, God picks us up and carries us home.  We are not the story but the story is incomplete without us.  God called Abraham…and on and on and on…and then God called you.

THIS Advent, be reminded not just of what happened 2,000 years ago but rather the story that would not be complete without you, the story of God in your midst.

Home is where your story begins. (Annie Danielson)

FOR TODAY:  Pray for those that came before you.  Pray for those that will come after you.  Be the story.  Tell the story.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Speechless

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Joseph with Infant Christ (Murillo)
“Joseph With Infant Christ”, Bartoleme’ Estaban Murillo, 1665-1666, Museum of Fine Arts, Sevilla, Spain

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah* took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’22All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’,
which means, ‘God is with us.’ 24When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son;* and he named him Jesus. (Matthew 1: 18-25)

The writer known as Matthew is the one that gives Joseph his moment.  But, interestingly enough, he doesn’t even get a chance to ask a question (like, “How can this be?”)  or voice his opinion or perhaps shake his fist in utter disbelief.  I don’t know if it’s the moment or the Scripture, but Joseph is somehow rendered speechless.  He’s not even given a small speaking role.  Instead, Joseph, who had apparently already decided what he was going to do (a plan that it should be noted in the face of the tradition was merciful and compassionate).  He was going to quietly dismiss her.  And, I suppose, Joseph would have faded into the pages of the story with no other mention.  Perhaps Mary could have gotten help from her cousins.  They probably would have put her up.  And Jesus and John would have grown up like brothers.  It could have all worked out, but that’s not what happened.  Because in this moment, Joseph is handed a dream.

It was apparently a wild fit of a dream.  I mean, the Lord came.  That cannot have been a comfortable situation.  And, true to form, God tells him not to be afraid.  “Oh, no,” Joseph thought, “I have read this before.  When the Lord tells you not to be afraid, things tend to happen–things like the floor of your world on which your standing giving way and you falling uncontrollably into something that you never imagined and for which you certainly could never have planned.  Hold on!”  And the Lord hands him a story that doesn’t even make sense.  Joseph is being asked to step back into the story.  And oh what a story it has become.  Joseph is being asked to raise the child that IS the Messiah.  Joseph is being asked to love him and guide him and discipline him (Good grief, how do you discipline a Messiah?  I mean, does he get like some sort of Divine time out?)  Joseph is even told what to name the child.

Well, I’m betting that Joseph’s first thought when he awoke was that he had eaten some bad shrimp or something (wait, that wouldn’t be…crustaceans and all…maybe he wondered if he had had a bad piece of lamb).  He probably laid there for a few minutes processing it all.  I mean, remember, the verses before the ones we read remind us that Joseph was descended from a long line of dreamers.  In fact, old Grandpa Jacob (like 34 “greats” ago) had fought back, wrestling until the break of day!  Remember that?  And then Joseph got up and moved out of the way and followed.  He had plans.  He had a reputation to think of.  He had a face that he had to present to the temple.  He had a life.  But Joseph moved aside and fell speechless.  And then God gave him his voice.

Advent should be our reminder to fall speechless, to get out of the way, and listen.  We, too, will be given our voice.

You must give birth to your images.  They are the future waiting to be born.  Fear not the strangeness you feel.  The future must enter you long before it happens.  Just wait for the birth, for the hour of new clarity.” (Rainer Maria Rilke)

FOR TODAY:  Shhhh!  Fall silent and let the Lord give you your voice.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Gaudete

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joy14Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! 15The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. 16On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. 17The Lord, your God, is in your midst. (Zephaniah 3: 14-17a)

This past Sunday, Gaudete Sunday (“Rejoice”), our third candle on the Advent wreath was the candle of joy.  I think that joy is hard for many of us to get our head around.  We Western Christians spend a lot of time pursuing happiness.  Our culture promises happiness if we will only…if we will only buy this or wear this or eat this or do this or go here or believe this way.  Many of our churches promise that God will shower us in happiness and prosperity if we will only…if we will only pray this way and do this and believe this and be this.  But happiness is elusive.  Happiness is fleeting.  Happiness is temporary.  But joy…God desires not that we be happy but that we have joy.  Joy is deep and abiding.  Joy overcomes.  Joy overpowers.  Joy can exist in the midst of the darkness—perhaps even break through the darkness given the chance.  Joy is found not in ourselves but beyond ourselves.  Joy is not something we pursue; joy is there for us already.

In this Advent season, we look for the signs that we so desperately want to see that will confirm God’s Presence.  But the signs are everywhere.  Rejoice!  Perhaps we are so busy trying to make our lives work out the way we want them to work out, to work out in the way that we think will bring us the most happiness, we are missing what is right in front of us.  As we near that holiest of nights, as we prepare to light our candles and sign Silent Night, and, if even for one moment, to feel the joy again, we need to practice by opening our eyes to God who, even now, is in our midst.

We have ten more days.  (Aaaaaggghhh!)  OK, let’s try again.  We have ten more days.  Rejoice!  The true joy of Christmas is that no matter what the darkness holds, no matter how all-encompassing it feels, no matter how many times our journey seems to lead us into quicksand, we are reminded that God comes into the tiniest of places and to the lowliest of spaces and claims them.  God claims us.  God claims you.  How can you NOT rejoice?  The celebration of Christmas reminds us that even though happiness is sometimes elusive, the joy of God-with-us settles into our soul and our minds and even our bones and stays.  God does not just come once a year in that magical candle-lighting, Silent Night-moment.  The Lord, your God, is in your midst.  The darkness may still surround you, but Joy has come and claimed a home.  Rejoice!  Gaudete!

The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything. (Julian of Norwich)

FOR TODAY:  Look around.  God is in your midst.  How can you NOT rejoice?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Faith in the Midst of Everything Else

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city-streetsPaul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, 3the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, 6including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, 7To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 1: 1-7)

So many of us spend our time trying to “find” God, perhaps trying to get to the place where God is.  We often forget that God is not sitting in some faraway place until we clean up our act or pray more or get more religious or figure it all out. (OK, THAT’S probably never going to happen.)  God comes into the normalcy of our lives.  God shows up on city streets and country lanes.  God appears in places that we wouldn’t dare go ourselves.  God does not limit the Divine to the places that are cleaned up and presentable.  God comes not just to the places where we think we should be but the places where we spend our days and spend our hours, the times when we laugh and grieve and dance and walk and get all confused and discombobulated and feel like we’re all alone.  The coming of God into our midst in this very chaotic and holy season reminds us of that.  God did not sit in some far-off palace eating hors d’oeuvres until everyone caught up with the Divine.  God came into the lowliest of cities and was born in the dirtiest of cribs and was held by the poorest of the poor who had been refused entrance to what most of us would count as normal.

The point is that God comes not to the ones who deserve God’s Presence, not to the ones that are really all that prepared, not to the ones that have done what they need to do, but to us.  God comes to us.  God comes into our lives just as they are and begins to walk, first taking our hand and guiding our steps until we can run on our own and help others along the way.  God comes into the places where God is unrecognized and needed the most.

Once I baptized a baby who was eating a Ritz cracker.  The mother was, of course, trying to calm the squirming child down enough to get some holy water on his head and hear the words that reminded us who he was and who we were.  It worked.  There, with Ritz cracker in hand, Hudson was reminded (or his parents were reminded) that he was a son of God with whom God is well pleased.  And I’m thinking that if all that took was a Ritz cracker, then we ought to spend our whole journey with an open box in tow.  We do not have to clean up our act before God comes.  God is willing to come into the very messiness of our lives.  If it takes a Ritz cracker to calm us down enough to receive it, then so be it.  THIS Advent, THIS Christmas, in the moment that you are now, look up and know that God comes, with our without hors d’oeuvres.

God did not wait till the world was ready, till nations were at peace. God came when the Heavens were unsteady and prisoners cried out for release. God did not wait for the perfect time.  God came when the need was deep and great. In the mystery of the Word made flesh the maker of the Stars was born. We cannot wait till the world is sane to raise our songs with joyful voice, or to share our grief, to touch our pain.  God came with Love.  Rejoice!  Rejoice! And go into the Light of God. (From “First Coming”, by Madeleine L’Engle)

FOR TODAY:  Pay attention to God’s coming.  It’s happening now.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Unfiltered

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unfiltered-light10Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, saying, 11Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. 12But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. 13Then Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? 14Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. 15He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted. (Isaiah 7: 10-16)

As we near the end of Advent and the promised coming of God, the prophetic voices seem to get louder and louder.  The picture of the promise has begun to take shape, moving from a far-off clouded beginning to verses that are more specific of what is about to happen.  We don’t know if Ahaz’ refusal to ask for a sign is because it had begun to be clear or if it was his way of showing his faith.  Either way, he didn’t feel the need to ask for proof of God’s existence or what God was about to do.  But we really don’t know who the child is.  Some think that this might have been referring to Ahaz’s wife, which means the child may have been the future king Hezekiah.  Centuries later when the Christian lens was added, another interpretation of the passage was taken as referring to the coming of Christ, Emmanuel, “God with us”.

There is ambiguity to the story.  Oh, who are we kidding?  There is ambiguity to the whole faith story.  Maybe that’s the point.  If the story were clear and definitive, why would we need faith?  If we knew exactly where we were going, why would we need to walk this road?  Faith is not knowing what the promise is; faith is not being sure of where we are going; faith is journeying toward a promise that is sometimes clear and sometimes cloudy, but always there.

Yesterday, every window in the house in which I live was replaced.  The old windows were dirty and worn.  They had been clouded over with years and years of dirt and grime, years of weather and winds, years of pounding rains.  (And they were so thin and brittle, that Maynard, the black lab had hit one and broken it going after a person or a cat or perhaps a unicorn, but that’s another story!) But when I look through the new windows, the colors are more pronounced and I can see more of what is outside.  The light streams in, unfiltered by dust and grime.  That is sort of what Advent does for us.  This season is a clearing season, clearing away the cobwebs and the dirt and grime, making the colors of our faith more pronounced so that the promise begins to come into focus, if only a little bit.  It is still filled with ambiguity and the unknown.  After all, we’re not meant to ever have ALL the answers.  We’re meant to walk in faith. But the signs are there.  Unfiltered, this season prepares us to open our eyes to the light as it begins to stream in. And when the light is that bright, it walks us through the ambiguity that it illumines.

Spirituality is the ability to live with ambiguity. (Ray Anderson)

FOR TODAY:  What signs do you see when you stop and look?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

When to Pull the Gospel Card

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playing-cards46And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, 47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. 50His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 51He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 52He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; 53he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. 54He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” (Luke 1: 46-55)

The Magnificat…Mary’s Song of freedom and mercy.  We all know the passage.  Most of us probably have sort of a love-fear relationship with it.  Each Advent we read this passage with perhaps a little reticence.  We love the words and the promises that they bring.  But, deep down, we’re probably a little afraid of on which side of the fence we might be standing.  These lovely, merciful words have been threatening the ways of the world since their very beginning.  E. Stanley Jones called the Magnificat “the most revolutionary document in the world.”  It is God’s Revolution, God’s Manifesto for the new creation.  It is said that the Russian czars were positively terrified of these words and the changes that they could incite.

The words are poetic and thoughtful.  But when you read them, it is clear that God exalts the poor, feeds the poor, helps the poor, and remembers the poor.  God brings the poor together just as God tears down and separates the mighty and the wealthy and the powerful.  Sadly, God sends the rich, those who do not see their need for God, away.  The Divine was not birthed by a princess or a queen.  God came through a young, terrified servant girl that would be raised up to be blessed by the world.  God’s vision is an upside-down version of what we have let our world become.

But this is not some isolated poem in the middle of Mary’s story.  These words are the Gospel. Let me say that again.  These words ARE the Gospel.  If you were to put the Gospel into its Cliff Notes version, I would think you could take these words, Matthew 22: 37-39, and Matthew 28:20b and have a pretty good idea of what Jesus was trying to say.  But there are those that will pull their “Gospel card” out of their pocket when it is convenient to prove their point.  There are those will draw it when they need to be comforted.  But, here, here we are asked to pull the Gospel card that will shake the world and send us to our knees.  Here, we are asked to pull the Gospel card so that the world will begin to see things differently.  It is revolutionary.  It would be hard to over-sentimentalize these words, hard to make them into something that they are not, hard to see that they are not talking about us.  I don’t think Jesus meant “oh, eventually” or “when you get around to it” or “yeah, “they” need to get on board”.  We are asked here to lay our riches and down and walk away from them.  We are asked to feed the poor and house the homeless.  We are asked to let go of power that we have gotten by human means that we hold onto so desperately for our own protection and our own edification.  Yes, we are asked to pull the Gospel card in our homes, in our lives, in our politics, in our nation, in our world.  Truth be told, these words have one meaning:  “Game on…”

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.  (Susan B. Anthony)

FOR TODAY:  Which card will you play?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli