Author: shelliwilliams

Remember Who You Are

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(part of the “Waiting on the World to Change” Advent Series)

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; 2to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.

4They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. 

8For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 9Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.

10I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.

This is another familiar passage for this season.  It’s part of the Year B Lectionary but, again, I’m “filling in”.  It speaks of hope.  (You’ll remember that it also appears in Luke 4:18-21, which is sort of Jesus’ first sermon, if you will.)  In both passages, God has sown God’s own Spirit into the one who speaks, breathed God’s breath into the one who will carry out God’s will.  And, here, standing amid the ruins of what was once a thriving Jerusalem, the prophet depicts the perfect Reign of God, the time when all of Creation will be renewed and fulfilled.  It is the hope for the future even in the midst of the smoldering ashes of what is now.  And within that hope is also a call to remember—remember who and whose you are, remember what you had, that we might work to build it again.  And the prophet acknowledges and affirms an individual call from God, a call to bring good news, to bind up, to proclaim liberty, to witness, and to comfort. Well, that’s good…because we need someone to fix this mess, right?

But notice that in verse 3, the pronoun changes.  No longer is the prophet affirming an individual’s call.  The calling is now to the plural “they”.  It’s not just the “me” that is the prophet; it is the “they” that is everyone. The prophet is not called to “fix” things; the prophet is called to proclaim that all are called to this work of transformation and to call on us to remember who and whose we are. In other words, all that work that you think needs to be done?  Remember who you are.  Remember that vision God calls you toward.

(OK…TRIGGER WARNING…)  I try very hard on this platform to NOT get political (I have another platform where I intentionally get blatantly political and that will suffice).  But I may be going up to the line here.  Honestly, I’m scared.  I’m scared that our society and our world are being slowly and intentionally taken over by different degrees of authoritarianism.  We Americans seem to somehow be content with handing over the reins to a newfound authoritarian oligarchy.  I have read too much history and traveled too many places to naively think that this will end well if we don’t turn a corner.  I’m scared that while we’re waiting for things to change, we’ve forgotten who we are.  We’ve forgotten what we’re called to do and called to be.  So, how do we build up and raise up and repair?  How do we listen to the prophet’s words?  How do we become instruments of change, instruments of God’s vision for what the world could be?

In 1998, I visited Russia. (During the worst heatwave they ever remembered!  I learned to drink straight frozen vodka at lunch because it felt like ice going through my body and it was lovely.)  Anyway, that was during the height of something different happening in Russia.  Gorbachev had introduced Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) in the mid-1980’s, the Communist regime Soviet Union had officially fallen in 1991 and there was a new life.  People were excited.  They knew they had it rough.  In fact, they had had it rough for centuries.  (“Doctor Zhivago” is not completely fiction.)  But there was hope.  Things were changing.

I visited Russia again in 2008.  I stayed for three weeks.  (Ironically, during the record-breaking snowfall and below-zero temperatures.  What is it with me?)  It was very different than it had been ten years before.  I stayed in a “luxury” apartment that rattled with the train down below, had peeling paint and cracking walls, no electricity that would withstand a curling iron, strange-colored water coming out of the hydrants, and was, oh my, so incredibly cold.  But truly, it WAS luxury.  I visited apartments of members of our sister church.  There were 15 people living in about 400 square feet.  The walls were covered in faded newspaper in an attempt to insulate it.  And food was scarce.  And much of it was rotting.  Perestroika was beginning to fade.  When I attended our sister church, I sat there (in a language that I only knew about ten words and how to read three words in Cyrillic) in an “illegal” church service because of the building in which it was held.  I remember thinking, “you know, this could end badly for me!”  But the point was that the society, the economy, and the newfound freedom and openness were failing.  They knew it was failing.  Rather than the feeling of hope and promise that I had observed ten years before, I had a sense that they were just trying to exist, just trying to go around all the issues without tripping on them.  They were just trying to avoid poking the bear, so to speak, and live their lives as best they could.  They were existing.

I don’t want that for us.  I want to listen to the prophet.  While we wait on the world to change, we cannot ignore if it is going backwards.  We HAVE to remember who and whose we are.  We are the ones that are called to become the new shoots sprouting to life.  We are the ones that are called to bring good news, to bind up, to proclaim liberty, to bring justice, to witness, and to comfort. 

See, God calls people to transform the world.  And we are “they”.  We are the ones that are called to stand in the ruins, to step through the smoldering ashes, to take the remnants of destruction and hate and despair and to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and to comfort all who mourn.  And as the earth brings forth shoots, as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.  Newness will arise from destruction or smoldering ashes or misspent interpretations.  God calls us to something new.  Remember that.  Do not be content to just exist.  God calls us to something more.  You can’t wait on the world to change without remembering who and whose you are.

The reality of Advent isn’t that we are waiting for the birth of the Christ Child.  The Christ Child is here and is waiting for us to come.  He is crying out to us from the border.  He is calling to us from the voices of the poor.  He is shouting out to us from prison.  He is waiting for us to live out our faith.  He is waiting for us to seek justice.  He is waiting for us to pursue peace.  Let us go, for He is waiting. (Susan Henry-Crowe)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

God Is Here

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(part of the “Waiting on the World to Change” Advent Series)

Zephaniah 3:14-20

14Sing 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, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing 18as on a day of festival. I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. 19I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. 20At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the Lord.

So, in case you haven’t figured it out, I’ve tried to at least try to line up with our lectionary texts from Year A.  But, since there’s only three Scriptures plus a psalter each week, writing daily calls for some “fill in”.  This passage is normally read in the third week of Advent during Year C.  We actually only read from the book of Zephaniah three times throughout the three-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary, so we’re probably not experts on it.  The book is probably set during the time of King Josiah.  It was a time of indifference by the people.  Maybe they were tired; perhaps they were just a bit too comfortable; or possibly they just forgot who and whose they were.  They have been hearing an ongoing foretelling of a time of destruction, a time of divine judgment. (I guess that would make me tune out too!)  But then we come to this passage.  It is a voice of hope, foretelling salvation rather than destruction.  And it proclaims, “the Lord, your God, is in your midst.”

Think about what that means.  We’ve talked a lot in this series about waiting for the world to change, about what we do while we’re waiting, about ways to wait and ways to change.  And a lot of our Advent waiting is couched as waiting for God, waiting for the coming of God into our midst.  But this passage says that God is here.  What do we do with that?  So, if you’ve been waiting for a God that is “out there” or “up there” or somewhere “up ahead” waiting for us to catch up, this throws all of that off.  God is here.  God is with us.  God is here, waiting with us now.

I often wonder what the Old Testament prophets would say to us today.  I often think it’s possible that they would be shocked and disappointed that we haven’t come farther than we have, that we still operate out of weakness and fear, that we still allow our leaders to pursue power over justice, that we still do not offer care for the lame and outcasts, that we are still desperately waiting for the world to change.  Go back and read this.  How much of Zephaniah’s words apply?  Probably most of them, as much as I hate to admit it.  But then we read that God is in our midst.  God is here.  God is here now.  So, don’t you wonder what God thinks of our world?  Don’t you think God is sometimes frustrated with us, maybe even angry at times?  I mean, we haven’t come that far from those to whom Zephaniah spoke.

God is here.  Imagine God there with you, sitting with you, experiencing what you are experiencing, rejoicing in your joy and suffering in your sorrow.  When we do not welcome the immigrant, God is here.  When armed troops march into our cities to purge the other, God is here.  When we kill survivors clinging to boats, God is here.  When we do not provide food to the hungry or healthcare to the sick, God is here.  And when our world rocks with war and power struggles and desperation, God is here.  When our public rhetoric becomes wrought with exclusion and racism and xenophobia, God is here.  God is here.  God is not waiting until the world changes.  God is here now.

It reminds of W.B. Yeats famous poem, “The Second Coming”.  He wrote it at the end of World War I and the beginning of the Irish War of Independence, when the world was in chaos, when there was a fear that a new and brutal era would emerge.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

And God was there.  The Scripture we read ends with a promise, a promise of a gathering in, of a homecoming.  It ends with the promise that the world will change.  And God is here, in our midst.  We’re not waiting for God.  God is here, waiting, waiting for us, waiting with us for the world to change.  God did not come when things were perfect.  God waits with us, waiting with us for the world to change.  God comforts us and soothes us and, if we listen, WHEN we listen, will also give us ways to get closer to the vision that God holds for us all.  The Lord God is in your midst.

Bidden or unbidden, God is present. (Desiderius Erasmus, 1466-1536; also attributed to Carl Jung, but this quote was supposedly posted above the door at his house in Switzerland)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Patiently Imperfect

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(part of the “Waiting on the World to Change” Advent Series)

James 5:7-10 (Advent 3A)

7Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. 8You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. 9Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! 10As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

Don’t you hate it when someone tells you to be patient?  I am, admittedly, not the most patient person in the world.  I mean, there’s so much stuff we have to do!  Am I right?  We’re told that we are supposed to be a part of this Kingdom of God.  We are told that we are to be instruments of bringing it into being.  And then we’re told we have to learn to wait.  And now we’re told that we’re supposed to do that patiently.  It’s enough to try one’s patience.

There is a story that I love (and have many times used it, so you’ve heard it before) about an American traveler on safari in Kenya.  He was loaded down with maps, and timetables, and travel agendas.  Porters from a local tribe were carrying his cumbersome supplies, luggage, and “essential stuff.”  On the first morning, everyone awoke early and traveled fast and went far into the bush.  On the second morning, they all woke very early and traveled very fast and went very far into the bush.  On the third morning, they all woke very early and traveled very fast and went even farther into the bush.  The American seemed pleased.  But on the fourth morning, the porters refused to move.  They simply sat by a tree.  Their behavior incensed the American.  “This is a waste of valuable time.  Can someone tell me what is going on here?”  The translator answered, “They are waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies.” 

It’s about rest.  But it’s also about patience.  It’s about refraining from that continual push to “make” things change, to “make” things happen.  Change will come when it will come.  Yes, we’re called to work toward it.  But we’re not called to make something happen when the time is not right.  (Note to self!)

This passage is pretty familiar.  But we usually take it out of context.  Go back and read James 4:1 through this passage.  The whole thing changes.  This exhortation to be patient is not directed at our patience toward what is happening around us.  Rather, it is an exhortation to be patient with EACH OTHER.  (Ugh oh…that changes everything!)  The patience here is not merely a personal virtue.  It’s not talking about the way we wait for God’s coming; it’s talking about the way we act in relationship with each other.  It is a patience that is deeply grounded in faith, deeply grounded in who we are as the people of God. 

This patience, this strengthening of our hearts comes as the community lives and witnesses together.  It is a patience that enacts as we live as members who watch over and care for one another.  It means taking on a deep compassion and love toward the other.  The writer of James is telling us to be attentive to one another, to be compassionate, to not let things come about that are not conducive to our relationships, no matter how much we think they further God’s Kingdom.  God will grant all in God’s time.  What we’re called to do is love each other and I think that means that we work toward those ways that help each other.

And we thought waiting on the world to change was hard!  Now we’re told that we have to be patient with one another. (So, yes, you have to be patient with all those people that you think are wrong!) You know what?  We also have to be patient with ourselves.  See, we don’t live in a world that’s perfect.  God knows that.  We live in a world that is what God created it to be—for now.  And God calls us to love one another and together (yes, TOGETHER) to work toward that vision that God holds for all of us—together.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32)

I discovered that in the spiritual life, the long way round is the saving way.  It isn’t the quick and easy religion we’re accustomed to.  It’s deep and difficult–a way that leads into the vortex of the soul where we touch God’s transformative powers.  But we have to be patient.  We have to let go and tap our creative stillness.  Most of all, we have to trust that our scarred hearts really do have wings. (Sue Monk Kidd)

Lyrics

Has this world forgotten how to love?
Are we blinded by the hate we let inside?
No one’s givin’ in or givin’ up
The lines are drawn and there’s no compromise

This isn’t who we are
It’s time for us to start

Looking for a window in the wall
Maybe we can see the other side
And find we’re not so different after all
Looking for a window in the wall

Sometimes hearts can grow as cold as stone
Then become the borders we can’t cross
The fertile fields of trust where love had grown
Slowly start to die when hope is lost

That’s where we are right now
But we can turn it all around by

Looking for a window in the wall
Maybe we can see the other side
And find we’re not so different after all
Looking for a window in the wall

We’re waging war, we’ve died enough
Fighting for everything but love
It’s time to heal (it’s time to heal)
To turn the page (to turn the page)
Too much to lose, so much to save
We have to change

Looking for a window in the wall
Maybe we can see the other side
And find we’re not so different after all
Looking for a window in the wall
Looking for a window in the wall

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Eddie Kilgallon / Tatiana Cameron / Thomas Paden

Window in the Wall lyrics © Pleezin’ The Breeze Music, Paden Place Music., Tajko Music Publishing

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Community Pool

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(part of the “Waiting on the World to Change” Advent Series)

Isaiah 12

You will say in that day: I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, and you comforted me. 2Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation. 3With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.  4And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted. 5Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. 6Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

This passage speaks of redemption, of God’s always-present faith in us.  Yes, that’s right.  Faith is not just a one-way thing.  We have faith in the faith that God has in us.  We love this passage.  We love to say it.  We love to sing it.  It brings us joy.  It is our affirmation that we trust that God will save us and that we rely on that.  And we wait and watch for those lovely flowing waters of salvation.  The writer’s vision is one of liberation—to the exiles, to the world, to all of Creation, to us.  The destiny is clear.  God is walking us all toward salvation and offering us healing waters and that is indeed something about which everyone should be joyful.

But notice, it’s not just about you and me; it’s about us—all of us.  It’s always odd for me when the language of prophets begins to sound like it’s intended for just one individual (i.e. the reader), as if it is called to direct the relationship that one person has with God.  That’s not usually the way prophets talked.  Their exhortations tended to be more collective.  They tended to talk more to the community rather than to just one individual.  So, I often find myself wondering if there’s some translation problems with some of the pronouns or maybe some confusion with the antecedents to which they refer.  I mean, what if God was OUR salvation.  Oh, wait, God is!

Faith is really meant to be more of a communal thing, don’t you think?  It’s not as if we’re in some sort of game to see who can come the closest to God.  After all, there’s that whole image of God thing.  If we are made in the image of God, then we are called to be trustworthy—for each other.  We are called to be the ones to draw waters that quench both physical and spiritual thirst–for each other.  We are called to be there for each other.  We don’t have individual wells. (Even if you HAVE an individual well, you’re still susceptible to the ground water from which you’re drawing).  The water is all of ours.  The well of salvation is a communal well.

And, yet, we still tend to wall ourselves off from each other and pull ourself into our own lives.  I think that is part of the reason that our society seems to be drowning.  You can’t wall off the water.  You can’t permanently hold it.  You certainly can’t choose who gets it.  It’s offered to us all.  You can’t quit trusting each other.  You can’t quit offering to each other.  God is in our midst, not to see if we’re doing everything right (because we’re probably not) but to show us the Kingdom of God—you know, the one for all of us.

When I visited the River Jordan (which is not the ACTUAL place of Jesus’ baptism but rather a part of the river where humans have again seen fit to wall it off and charge admission for the experience.  I’m not really sure if that’s what God had in mind.), I collected my perfunctory water to bring home.  All I had was a small pill bottle.  Yes, it made it home.  But it didn’t last.  Because water cannot be held.  (And apparently the seal on pill bottles is not all that reliable). It is shared whether we want to admit it or not.  I once was preparing to do a baptism and the mother of the child passed me on the stairs as I climbed to the next floor with the baptismal bowl (to go get water out of the sink in the lady’s bathroom).  She asked where I was going and my immediate response was “the River Jordan”.  She laughed and replied, “well as long as it’s clean.”  It was funny.  But think about it—water molecules don’t disappear.  They drain out, they evaporate, the return in as some form of water over the earth.  It continues forever.  Maybe some of those molecules in the lady’s bathroom HAD once been in the River Jordan.  Maybe some of those molecules were there with Jesus that day.  The point is, we’re really just swimming in a community pool all the time.

God IS our salvation.  God offers us the waters of salvation—over and over and over again.  There is no water destined for me.  There is none destined for you.  We really are just swimming in a community pool.  And while we wait for the world to change, the water remains.  Get out of yourself.  Even if it’s hard right now, realize that we are in this together—all of us.  We have the water, offered to each of us, to quench our thirst and clean our very being.  But it really is a communal well.  So don’t hold on so tightly.  Just let it refresh you and bring you peace.

One cannot step twice in the same river, for fresh waters are forever flowing around us.  (Heraclitus of Ephesus, c. 500 BCE)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Just Beneath the Surface

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(part of the “Waiting on the World to Change” Advent Series)

Isaiah 35:1-10 (Advent 3A)

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. 3Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”

5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. 8A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. 9No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. 10And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Once again, we get a vision of what’s to come.  But this is not some image of a future, far-off world.  It’s not some reward we’ll get for living semi-righteous lives.  It’s not some other place or other realm of being.   This is God’s vision for the world we have now.  And it is there already, planted and growing, in some places maybe even beginning to bloom.  But here we are, supplanted in our current ways, sometimes feeling strangled and parched, often feeling held down by things we create or things others do to us.  But Albert Einstein once said that “your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.”  So, what is it you imagine?  What preview do you see?

The writer of this passage was probably writing to an exiled people, a people who had been so beat up and put down that they were having a hard time imagining anything else.  But this writer looked at a world that was in chaos and saw order, looked at a road so overgrown that it was thought to be impassable and saw a highway, and looked at the thirsty, lifeless desert and saw blooms.  And then we read of a scene that was beyond what anyone ever thought would happen.  He envisions these exiles, these people whose hopes and dreams had long been quashed and whose lives had become nothing more than an exercise in survival dancing and singing with joy as they returned home.

Yes, it’s hard to imagine beyond where we are.  We are waiting, waiting on the world to change.  And we believe it will.  Our faith tells us that.  But belief, even faith, has to include some imagination, don’t you think?  I mean, faith is not an intellectual pursuit.  We don’t read some passage in the Bible and immediately respond with faith.  We’re not called to some blind acceptance of what we’re told.  We don’t have faith in something just because we read some account of it.  Faith comes because God gives us the wherewithal to imagine it, to imagine it into being.  Imagination dares to see what the eyes cannot see.  (That kind of sounds like faith, doesn’t it?)  So, let your imaginations go wild.

It’s always there, beneath the surface.  It’s always there, planted, ready to sprout.  That’s what faith is about—imagining what will be.  I mean, imagine that everyone has enough.  Imagine that the world is at peace.  Imagine that everyone steps up to care for the earth, to slow down the decay and the destruction we humans have caused.  Imagine that everyone has equal rights and acceptance, and a voice, and a vote.  Imagine that our first concern is not ourselves but our neighbor.  Imagine that government is about our voice rather than a fight over control.  Imagine that everyone is safe from harm, safe from gun violence, safe from human trafficking, safe from hunger and hurt and desperation.  Imagine that we all see ourselves as instruments of imagination, people of faith.

In this season of Advent, we are not just called to look toward that day about which the writer of this passage writes.  We are reminded to look FOR that day, to imagine and believe it into being and to see what of it is already there.  We live within a holy tension of the way the world is and the way God calls the world to be.  But we are reminded that the blooms in the desert are already planted.  Barbara Brown Taylor says that “Human beings may separate things into as many piles as we wish—separating spirit from flesh, sacred from secular, church from world.  But we should not be surprised when God does not recognize the distinctions we make between the two.  Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars. (An Altar in the World:  A Geography of Faith, p. 15.)  So, what if everything that you saw, everything that you touched, was indeed holy–maybe not holy in the “holier-than-thou, overly-righteous, inaccessible-to-the-ordinary-human” sense, but rather “thick with divine possibility,” filled with the promise of redemption, the promise that buried deep within its being were deserts waiting to bloom?  Just imagine.

Once, when I was particularly depressed, a friend and pacifist from Holland told me something very beautiful: “The people who worked to build the cathedrals in the Middle Ages never saw them completed. It took two hundred years and more to build them. Some stone-cutter somewhere sculpted a beautiful rose; it was his life’s work, and it was all he ever saw. But he never entered into the completed cathedral. But one day, the cathedral was really there. You must imagine peace the same way. (Dorothy Soelle)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

A Reordering

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(part of the “Waiting on the World to Change” Advent Series)

Psalm 72: 1-7, 18-19 (Advent 2A)

1Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son.

2May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.

3May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness.

4May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.

5May he live while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.

6May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth.

7In his days may righteousness flourish and peace abound, until the moon is no more.

18Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. 19Blessed be his glorious name forever; may his glory fill the whole earth. Amen and Amen.

This psalter is part of a Psalm that was probably read at the occasion of a royal liturgy.  The words are the petition for a leader, a good leader, a worthy leader, a leader that will bring the nation into righteousness and peace, a leader that will answer injustice with hope and promise.  It is a prayer not just for a redeemed people but a redeemed nation.  It is a prayer that the vision of the nation might be reordered into that vision that God holds for all of us.

During Advent, we talk a lot about God’s vision.  We talk a lot about the Kingdom of God becoming what it should be.  And we hope and we dream and we look for it to happen.  But do you think sometimes we’re not looking through the right lenses? I mean, I pray for this to happen.  You pray for this to happen.  And when we live in a time such as this, we wait, we wait for the world to change.  But are we hoping that will happen for us or are we hoping it will happen for the world?  I know that’s a weird question.  What if we’re so shaped right now by the difficulties we are experiencing that our view of God’s vision has become an end to those difficulties, a way of moving ourselves into a better scenario.

Years ago, in one of the large meeting rooms at Lakeview Methodist Assembly in Palestine, TX, hung a huge poster.  When you went up to it, it was this wonderful mosaic of maybe 100-125 pictures of people doing ministry, of the church being the church, of Christians being Christians.  It was inspirational.  But if you went to the other side of the room and looked back at it from a distance, you couldn’t see the individual pictures.  What you saw instead was an image of Christ.  All of those tiny pictures came together into an image of the Holy.  It was powerful.  I’ve spent years trying to find that picture.  But I’ll never forget it.  When you quit looking at the individual pictures, together they become a picture of the Holy.

Another metaphor…have you ever sang in a choir?  I’ve recently gone back to singing in a choir after “doing other things” for about 25 years.  Learning to sing in a choir is not just about learning to sing.  It’s more than that.  It’s almost kind of practice for God’s Kingdom.  Because a choir is not just a conglomeration of individual voices.  At its best (when the choir is truly at its best), you can’t hear the individual voices.  You actually hear what sounds like one multi-layered voice.  There are no individual “solos” sticking out over the music.

That’s it.  The Kingdom of God is not about me or you; it’s about us—all of us.  So, we have to back away from ourself.  We have to back away from those things that make us uncomfortable, those things that make life difficult, those things that we want desperately to control.  The Kingdom of God is not a fulfillment of all the things for which we wish.  God is not Santa Claus.  Rather, God’s vision is a reordering of Creation, a re-creation of everything. 

So, I had an interaction on Facebook yesterday.  (Yeah, I know…)  Anyway, the person wanted to give people money for food but do away with systemic programs, such as SNAP.  In other words, SHE wanted to pick and choose who deserved her money rather than at least attempting to create a system that helps that along.  Here’s where we need to back away.  Here’s where we need to see that outline of Christ.  Here’s where we need to tone our “solo” voices down and become a choral ensemble.  I don’t think God’s vision is one that gives us everything we want; I think it’s a vision that fulfills everyone’s need.  Remember that whole manna thing?  The manna came.  They ate.  And then the manna left.  The Daily Bread is given over and over.  It’s not for us to decide who gets is.  It’s not something that some will be given more.  It’s God vision—a vision where everyone is filled and no one has too little or too much–a picture that we have to sometimes back away to see.

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. (John Donne)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Pointing Toward the Moon

shelliwilliams Advent ,

(part of the “Waiting on the World to Change” Advent Series)

Matthew 3:1-12 (Advent 2A)

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” 4Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

7But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Oh…John.  We talk about him every Advent.  Sometimes it seems that he’s the one, the gatekeeper, so to speak, that we have to go through to get to Christmas Eve.  As most of you know, I was “late” to this clergy thing.  I’m what they call “second career”.  And on this second Sunday of Advent in 2001, I gave my first sermon.  I was asked to step in at FUMC, Fulshear, where my then-mentor was serving, while she was out of town.  Truthfully, I had no idea what I was doing.  I hadn’t taken a preaching course yet, so, basically, I was just making stuff up.  And the Scripture for the day was this…John the Baptist.  Most people, if they’re given the chance, choose the Good Samaritan story or the Woman at the Well or even The Prodigal Son as their first sermon, things they can easily overly-romanticize into feel-good messages.  But, no, I get John the Baptist!

We all know the story.  He was the son of Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth.  So, he is Jesus’ cousin (or maybe his second cousin) And he is quite the character.  He is a wild wilderness of a man donned in animal skins and a leather belt.  And he eats locusts and wild honey.  And he is REALLY LOUD.  He is always shouting to his hearers to repent and to prepare for the coming of the Lord.  And he baptized them.

Yeah, he’s loud and he’s brash and he doesn’t pay attention to the dress code and what do you do with him?  You listen.  Because, off putting though he may have been, he really did get it right.  He just didn’t fit into our ideal form of what an evangelist should be.  When I gave that sermon, my parents came.  It was 2001.  We had just gone into Afghanistan.  And my dad took the description of John the Baptist and imagined John Walker Lindh, that American that joined the Taliban and was arrested in November of 2001.  So now I can never imagine John the Baptist as anything else.  Like I said, he was wild and bizarre.  And he was Jesus’ cousin.

So, in that sermon, I didn’t get anything wrong.  I mean, John was wild and brash but he was also faithful.  He understood his mission.  He understood what he was called to do. In her book, Called to Question, Joan Chittister tells a Sufi tale of disciples who, when the death of their master was clearly imminent, became totally bereft.  “If you leave us, Master,” they pleaded, “how will we know what to do?”  And the Master replied, “I am nothing but a finger pointing at the moon.  Perhaps when I am gone you will see the moon.”  I think that was what John understood.  He never put himself out there as some sort of evangelist.  He was the forerunner, the one who came before.  He was the finger pointing at the moon.

I actually didn’t get any of that first sermon wrong.  I just didn’t finish it.  We can talk all we want to about John.  But the truth is, John’s story is not just about John.  It’s also about us and how we’re called to be like John (well, maybe without the locusts!).  It’s about what we’re called to do.  As John was waiting on the world to change, he stepped out.  He stepped forward and he spoke.  It wasn’t always accepted.  I mean, he was loud and brash and often off putting.  But he understood what he was called to do—to be a finger pointing at the moon, to point to what was coming, to point to what would be. 

So, here we are…waiting on the world to change.  We are called to glean our mission from John.  We are called to speak, to step out, to point the world to the change that God calls us to do.  John wasn’t just a cousin; he was the finger pointing at the moon, the forerunner to the Messiah, the Savior of the World. 

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)

Something better’s coming
Just you wait and see
Something better’s coming
It’s your job to believe
May not be what you wanted
But always what you need
Something better’s coming
Just you wait and see

To every mother’s daughter
To every father’s son
It may look like it’s over
And the other side has won
But, if there’s any truth to
The greatest prophecy
Something better’s coming
Just you wait and see

Oh, we’ll be dancing on the water
Yeah, where the music has no end
There’ll be no lost and no forgotten
There’ll be no us versus them

So, are you ready? Are you ready?
Are you ready? Are you, people?
Yeah, are you ready? Are you ready?
Are you ready? Are you, people?
Oh, are you ready? Are you ready?
Are you ready? Are you, people?
Won’t you tell me now
Yeah, are you ready? Are you ready?
Are you ready? Are you, people?

Oh, ooh ooh hoo, ooh ooh hoo
Oh, ooh ooh hoo, ooh ooh hoo

And I know it’s easy for our hearts to harden
But, that’s exactly what they want us to do
We’ve got to keep the vessel open
So, the love can keep pouring through

Yeah, ’til we’re dancing on the water
Where the music has no end
There’ll be no lost and no forgotten
There’ll be no us versus them

Oh, we’ll be dancing on the water
Yeah, where the music has no end
There’ll be no lost and no forgotten
No more original sin
No, no, no

Yeah, are you ready? Are you ready?
Are you ready? Are you, people?
Yeah, are you ready? Are you ready, people?
Oh, are you ready? Are you ready?
Are you ready? Are you, people?
Tell me now
Yeah, are you ready? Are you ready?
Are you ready? Are you, people, people?

Oh, ooh ooh hoo, ooh ooh hoo
Oh, ooh ooh hoo, ooh ooh hoo
Yeah
Ooh ooh hoo, ooh ooh hoo
Yeah
Ooh ooh hoo, ooh ooh hoo

Something better’s coming
Just you wait and see

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Darrell Brown / LeAnn Rimes

something better’s coming lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli