With God on Our Hands

December 27, 2020December 26, 2020 shelliwilliams Uncategorized Jesus, Presence of God, Simeon

Lectionary Passage: Luke 2: 22-35 (36-40)

²²When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³(as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), ²⁴and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” ²⁵Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. ²⁶It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. ²⁷Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, ²⁸Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, ²⁹“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; ³⁰for my eyes have seen your salvation, ³¹which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, ³²a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” ³³And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. ³⁴Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed ³⁵so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

So before you exhale after all your cooking and wrapping and running around frantically to get everything done, I have to tell you that we’re not done. The truth is, the birthing is never really over. This is the Season of Christmas (as opposed to the Season of Advent that we just completed). But we don’t get a whole lot of help from the Scriptures. We read the story of Jesus’ birth and then Scripture accounts of the days and years that followed are spotty at best. This passage is one of the few accounts of Jesus’ childhood. But it is a reminder that Jesus was a Jew, lived among Jews, and, for that matter, was Jewish for his entire life.

So, in this passage that we read, our story has jumped forty days from the birth story that we read just a few days ago. Eight days after Jesus had been born, he had, in accordance with Jewish law, been circumcised and named. Now thirty-two days later, they go to the temple. The trip is serving two purposes. First of all, Mary must be purified. According to the twelfth chapter of Leviticus, after a woman gives birth, she is impure for forty days. At the end of that time, she is to bring an offering to the temple and be purified. Additionally, Jesus, the firstborn son, is to be consecrated and offered to God.

So, in this moment, a man named Simeon appears. It says that he took Jesus in his arms. Can you imagine Mary and Joseph’s reaction? After all, this was their newborn, probably the first time that they had ever really had him out in public, and this old man comes out of the shadows and scoops up their child. But something made them step back. Was it his words, or his demeanor, or something else? This frail, older man, held the child with a tenderness that was amazing. He cradles Jesus in his arms and looks into his eyes. And he begins to prophesy.

But the words were a bit different than the foretelling over the last months and weeks from angels and shepherds and the like. “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; ³⁰for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, ³²a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” Simeon was a righteous and devout man. His Jewish faith had been important to him his entire life. And that faith included a promise that God would indeed send a Savior, a Messiah. And he knew that his life would not end until he had seen the promise fulfilled. So he looked down into the bright, dark brown eyes of this child and he knew. Simeon had waited his entire life for this child, for this moment. Now he could die in peace. Don’t take that as a giving up of life. It was his resolve. His life, his promise, had been fulfilled. He was at such peace that he couldn’t even imagine life being any more than it was in this moment. He had not waited for moments or the four weeks of Advent or even a few months. He had waited decades, his entire life, for this moment.

Simeon’s Song, the Nunc Dimittis (Latin for “now send away”), is sometimes sung after Communion and often at the end of a funeral. It is a plea for peace. He is not asking for death; he is accepting it and with it, the promise of redemption. For Simeon, death is no longer a pall that hangs over him; it is part of life.

So as Simeon, with a gleam of life in his eyes, hands the child back to Mary, he adds: This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too. In other words, once again, things are about to change. This child is special. This child provokes a decision that each person must make. Notice the order. We talk of the rise and fall of people, the rise and fall of nations, the rise and fall through history of whole societies. But THIS child, THIS child will cause the falling and rising, THIS child will turn the world upside down and bring life. In that moment, Mary knew that she would experience grief. But she also knew that her grief would rise and become life.

So why are we talking about death so soon after the glory of Jesus’ birth? Shouldn’t we get a little bit of a reprieve before we start walking to the cross? The reason is that the two cannot be separated. Simeon knew who Jesus was. He saw Jesus’ life. He saw Jesus’ death. And he saw life again. He saw, even at that early time, the signs of redemption.

So what do we do with this? You know, we probably should have known. This thing for which we have hoped, and waited, had to involve us in some way. God was born unto us. We, like Simeon, have God on our hands. What do we do with God now? I don’t know about you but on some level, it’s hard to find the right words. Maybe all we have left to do is praise and sing and respond. God has come into this world and is here, here on our hands.

The truth, of course, is that Jesus’ coming does not end with the calendar or with the festivities or with the final packing-up. His coming is always a beginning and a sending. We, too, are now sent away. We, too, are at peace with letting our old selves die and becoming the ones unto whom Christ was born. The hope that was so prevalent during Advent, the promise for which we waited and prepared, is here, right before us. God is with us, on our hands.

Christ has come! God has been born unto us and we have God all over our hands. Jesus’ coming begins our going. We are not sent into the world with all the answers or with an assurance that we really even know what we’re doing. Our directions, like our Scriptures, are spotty at best. We are not called to be perfect; we are not called to be brilliant; we are called to be courageously faithful, to go, to go and be Christ in the world. Christ has come! And we have begun.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work. And when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. (Wendell Berry)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Made Flesh

December 25, 2020December 23, 2020 shelliwilliams Uncategorized Christmas, Peace, Story

Scripture Passage: John 1: 1-14

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. ⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. ¹⁴And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

The Word became flesh. Think about it. God’s Spirit, God’s breath, the Hebrew language refers to it as ruah, the very essence and being of God was suddenly given flesh and bone and cartilage and hands and feet and all those very human things that we humans require to be here on earth. In other words, the Divine became human, if only for a while. That tells us that God does not desire a partner, or a relative, or a close friend. God desires to live with each of us as one of us. The miracle of Christmas is not just that God came, although that would be miracle enough. The miracle of Christmas is that God takes on flesh.

In The Message paraphrase of the Bible, Eugene Peterson says that “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” That’s actually a little disconcerting when you think about it. That means that you’ll see God when you’re out walking your dog or getting your mail. It means that you’ll run into God in the grocery store when you’re in a terrible hurry and don’t have time. It means that God will show up at your door when the house is a wreck and you are least expecting visitors.

As the Scripture says, in the beginning was God and in the end will be God and in between? In between, God is with us. In between, God is one of us. In between, is us. That is the very mystery of Christmas. So what do we do then with a God who is with us? God is not limited to this sanctuary or to the places in our lives where we’ve sort of cleaned up a bit. God comes into place of darkness and places of light. God comes into profound poverty and into gated communities. God is with us every step of our lives. God is one of us in our flesh and our bone. God has moved in.

So, now it’s our move. I suppose we could just pick up the Christmas decorations and put them back in the box for another year. I suppose we could just go back to whatever we define as our normal lives. But the problem is that God is with us. God lives with us, here, in the neighborhood. Everywhere we turn, we will meet God—over and over and over again. And once you’ve met God, you can’t go back to the way it was before.

The problem with God is not that God comes at times that might be a little inconvenient for us; the problem with God is that God never goes away. God is all over us. That first Christmas was God’s unveiling, God’s coming out of the darkness and the shadows and showing us what we could not see before. God poured the Divine into the lowliest of humanity, into a dirty animal stall, and began to pick us up so we could walk with God.

And we are asked to follow. We are asked to become something new. We are asked to now become the very reflection of the God that is here everywhere. Thomas Merton once said that “the Advent mystery is the beginning of the end in all of us that is not yet Christ.” It’s Christmas. Now is the time. Let us go see this thing that has happened.

God is closer to me than I am to myself. (Meister Eckhart)

Thank you for joining me on this Advent journey! I hope it gave you some hope and some light in this very-hard time in which we live right now. Now I’m going to take just a small break. BUT…I’m back in practice, so I’m going to try to continue (but not every day!). I’ll continue to post at least once a week around the Lectionary passages and maybe sometimes you’ll get an extra post in a week if I just have something else to say! SO, look for a post Sunday morning or earlier for the Sunday after Christmas and then a post for Epiphany Sunday early next week and that will be our plan for now. Thanks again for joining me! Have a wonderful Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Shelli

The Story of God

December 24, 2020December 23, 2020 shelliwilliams Uncategorized Christmas Eve, Light

Scripture Passage: Luke 2: 1-20 (KJV)

2 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. ²(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) ³And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. ⁴And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) ⁵To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. ⁷And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. ⁸And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. ¹⁰And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. ¹¹For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. ¹²And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. ¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, ¹⁴Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ¹⁵And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. ¹⁶And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. ¹⁷And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. ¹⁸And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. ¹⁹But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. (Luke 2: 1-20, KJV)

And it came to pass…after all this time, not just the season we’re wrapping up but those centuries upon centuries of humanity’s waiting. Generations passed. Time passed. Centuries passed. To be honest, whole cultures passed. And finally, this, too, has come to pass. It’s the time for which we have waited. This is the time that makes the world stop, if only for a moment, and say a prayer for peace and light our candle and gather around our Savior. This is the night that we keep and ponder. So even if Covid is keeping you at home, light a candle. Light a candle to honor the waiting, to honor those people that brought you here, to honor their journeying and their wrestling and their burning bushes. Light a candle for peace. Light a candle in affirmation that the Light has dawned. Now, go back and read the passage like you do not know the story (I even gave you the King James version!). Pretend that this is the first time you have heard the greatest story ever told.

The journey took many days. They were tired and thought about turning back several times. But they had to keep moving. The time was almost here. The desert wilderness was cold and unforgiving. The winds whipped around the mountains this time of year and made it worse. The pathway was treacherous. But now they were here. Mary and Joseph have arrived in Bethlehem. The crowds are almost too much to take, pushing and crushing as the couple makes their way through them. Mary doesn’t feel well. She really needs to just lie down and rest. And when you don’t feel well, the last place you want to be is somewhere that is not home, somewhere foreign, somewhere so crowded, so unwelcoming. They need to hurry. There is not much time left.

They stop at a small house up on the hill overlooking the Shepherds’ Field down below. The owner offers a bed and a meal for a reasonable price. Joseph leaves Mary for a moment and goes to make arrangements for a place to stay. But when he returns, his face looks frustrated, almost in tears. He tells Mary that the inn is full. In fact, the whole town is full. There is no place to stay. There is no room. But he tells Mary that the innkeeper has given them permission to at least go into the stable room in the back of the house to keep warm. He’s freshening the hay now. Well, it will have to do.

You know, I think the innkeeper gets a bad rap. I mean, was he supposed to kick someone else out? And consider this: This was not the Hilton. It probably wouldn’t even qualify as a roadside motel. It was probably just a couple of small beds in the innkeeper’s home that he rented out to help make ends meet. And first century houses were often just a room or maybe two of actual living quarters anyway. The second or third room was attached to the house and used to house the animals that were so much a part of their life. No one in this small town would have owned a large “ranch” estate or a garage apartment. The stable probably wasn’t “out back” the way we interject into the story. It was part of the home. So the innkeeper was possibly, on some level, bringing Mary and Joseph, bringing strangers, into his home. His home became part of the story.

So Mary and Joseph entered the stable room and, surrounded by animals, tried to get some rest. They could still hear the crowded city outside but at least it was warm. The innkeeper has actually been really nice. They could hear the Roman guards yelling as they tried to control the crowds. It made the place feel ever more foreign, even more foreboding. But directly overhead, was the brightest star they had ever seen. It was as if the tiny little stable was being bathed in light. So Mary laid down and closed her eyes. She knew that the time was almost here. She knew that the baby was coming into the world.

And on this night of nights, into a cold, dirty, smelly stable in a small town filled with yelling and pushing crowds, into a place occupied by foreign soldiers, into a place that did not feel like home, into a world that had no room, into a back door, God comes. The door to the Divine swings open and God and all of heaven burst into our little world, flooding it with Light and Life. And yet, the child in the manger bathed in light, the very Incarnation of the Divine, Emmanuel, God With Us, the Messiah, is, still, one of us. God takes the form of one of us–just an ordinary human–a human like you and me–to show us what it means to be one of us, to be human, to be part of the story.

There is not one of us that does not love The Christmas Story. It’s got it all–heartache, darkness, intrigue, danger, animals, innocence, an oppressive government, and a baby to boot. It’s got all those things that make great tales. No wonder it’s a bestseller! No wonder there are so many songs written about it and paintings depicting it. But for all the romantic notions of a baby born into a cold desert night in a small town on the other side of the world to poor, struggling parents, this story is not about a birth. It’s not a story about a baby. This is the Story of God.

God has come before. There have always been incarnations of God. But this night, THIS Incarnation, is God’s unveiling. It is God coming out of the darkness and out of the shadows and showing us what we could not see before. God became one of us to show who we were created to be. So, in this season, we again hear the story. We hear the story of God. But unless we realize that it is our story, it still won’t be enough. God came as God Incarnate into this little world to tell the story that goes back to the beginning. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1: 1-5)

Just now, the light is beginning to dawn. It is not a new light, but the light that was created in the beginning. But, this time, THIS time, let us finally see the story it holds—because it is the story of God, the story of God who loved us so much that the heavens would open and spill into the earth so that we would know the story, know the story so well that we would have a part in writing it. Because this is the chapter in which you and I come to be, the very dawn of redeeming grace spilling into a waiting story-filled earth. Tonight a baby is born and we continue the story. What will you now do with your chapter? Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward all.

Christmas did not come after a great mass of people had completed something good, or because of the successful result of any human effort. No, it came as a miracle, as the child that comes when his time is fulfilled, as a gift of God which is laid into those arms that are stretched out in longing. In this way did Christmas come; in this way it always comes anew, both to individuals and to the whole world. (Eberhard Arnold)

Merry Christmas!

Shelli

Walking Each Other Home

December 23, 2020December 21, 2020 shelliwilliams Uncategorized Advent, Genealogy of Jesus, Journey, Light

Scripture Passage: Matthew 1: 1-17

An 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.

I know what you’re thinking. What an odd scripture to use on the day before Christmas Eve, the day when we are almost there, almost ready to emerge from the darkness into the glorious Light. The truth is, we usually skip over these verses. I mean, they’re full of hard-to-pronounce words that none of us want to have to read from the lectern and, frankly, they’re kind of boring. Am I right? In fact, these verses are NEVER included in the Lectionary, regardless of what year you use. So….why? Why are we reading them? Because the story itself is buried in the details…

I suppose God could come into the world with no help from us, with no help from all those faithful ones who came before us. But what would it mean? Why bother? After all, the name of the Christ child is “God With US”. Doesn’t that mean something? God did not just drop the baby out of the sky like some sort of Divine UPS package. The story is incomplete without those that came before. And it is incomplete without us. Because without us, without every one of us, without EACH of us, God never would have come at all. God came as Emmanuel, “God with US”, and calls us into the story.

And what a story it is! It is a story of those that were called and those that ran away, a story of some who were exiled and some who wrestled, a story of scared and wandering people sent to new places and new lives with new names. The story includes prophets and poets, priests and kings. It is a story of movement between darkness and light and, always, a hope for a Savior. This line of David shown by the writer known as Matthew is 42 generations of God’s people, six sets of seven generations that lived and questioned and prayed and worshipped and wondered and sometimes shook their fists at God and then handed it off to the children that followed them. Now you might remember that the number 7 is one of those numbers that connotes perfection or completeness, the hallowed finishing. So, six completed ages of the history of God’s people waiting and watching and walking the journey brings us to the seventh, the New Creation, the beginning of what is next.

The Incarnation is the mingling of God with humanity. There’s no way out. The Divine is even now pouring into our midst and we are changed forever. But we have to birth the Godchild into our lives. Knowing that we could never become Divine, the Divine became us. The world is turned upside down. And so God stayed around to show us how to live in this new world. The writer of Matthew is right. All this DID take place to fulfill what has been spoken by the Lord through the prophets. The Light is just beyond our sight, ready to dawn, ready to call us into it that we might continue the story. We are all walking together. As Ram Dass said, “we’re all just walking each other home”.

Open your eyes. The Light is about to dawn.

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. (Madeleine L’Engle)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The People Who Walk in Darkness

December 22, 2020December 21, 2020 shelliwilliams Uncategorized Advent, Darkness, Light

Scripture Passage: Isaiah 9: 2-7

²The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined. ³You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. ⁴For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. ⁵For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire. ⁶For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. ⁷His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

In a national survey this past week, The Washington Post found that the top three words that people use to describe 2020 are “exhausting”, “lost”, and “chaotic”. We can probably identify. We’ve spent this season of waiting looking for something, looking for a light in the darkness, a hand in the shadows, an order to the chaos. Well, the darkness is beginning to fade as the light has begun to make its way into our lives. The thing is that we have to be prepared to see it. Are we? After this long season of preparation in a longer year of chaos, have we done all our preparing? Are our eyes adjusted? Or will we again need turn away and look toward the darkness because we are so unprepared to see the light?