Scripture Text: Isaiah 7: 10-17

¹⁰Again 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.

¹⁷The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on your ancestral house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria.”

During this season of Advent this year, we have read texts that get louder and louder with prophetic messages of what is to come.  This is the thing of which Christmas’s are made.  This one is no different.  I will tell you, though, that this is not usually considered the easiest scripture passage to talk about.  So, it should be noted that this is not even in this year’s lectionary assignments and I STILL chose it!

So, in this passage, we read of the signs and wonders that were shown to the House of David.  “Here, listen people, there is a young woman with child.  She shall bear a son and the world will change.”  That’s essentially what it says.  As Christians, we often read this as a prophetic sign of what will come, a prophet’s vision of the coming of Christ, Immanuel.  But, read it again.  This is in the present tense.  The young woman IS with child.  (as in already) So, which is it?  Is it a child born immediately after this writing or are we talking about the birth of Jesus?  After all, the writer known as Matthew depicted it differently.  Is it then or is it later? 

The sign is a child.  The child’s name, Immanuel (or “God with us”) reinforces the divine promise to deliver the people from sure demise.  The child is born of a young woman, the Hebrew “almah”, which means a young woman of marriageable age.  Many scholars think that the young woman may have been Ahaz’s wife and her son the future king Hezekiah. If the author had wanted to depict the woman as a virgin, the word “betulah” would have been used.  But in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word was translated as “parthenos” or “virgin”.  So, here’s the deal.  At the risk of blowing your whole view of prophecies about the coming Christ out of the water, so to speak, this passage in its purest form is not about Jesus.  It’s an account of a promise made to a people in 8^th century BCE that find themselves in the dangerous position of being situated between two warring factions.  Caught between Judah and Assyria, they were afraid.  So, the prophet Isaiah delivers these words.  Essentially, the prophet is telling the people that God is with them, that God will save them, that their enemies will be thwarted, that a child will be born who will become the ruler they need.

Fast forward to the first century after the birth of Christ.  The writer we know as Matthew, who most think was a very devout (and probably educated) Jew, reiterates these well-known words in the first chapter:

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.’ 

For the writer of Matthew’s Gospel, the birth of Jesus was the coming of God into the world, Emmanuel, God with us.  I’m not convinced that he actually understood the original verse as a prophecy of Jesus’ birth.  I think it was more that he finally understood the meaning of Immanuel.  He finally grasped the meaning of what he had always been taught, what he had always knew.  He finally understood what it meant for God to be with us.  And then all those translators that came after that capitalized on that notion, perhaps in an effort to explain the unexplainable, to rid the text of the ambiguities that were probably meant to be there in the first place.

So, which is it?  Is it a virgin or a young woman?  Is it talking about Hezekiah or Jesus?  Is it what the writer known as Isaiah probably wrote or what the writer known as Matthew assumed or what the later redactors translated?  Yes.  All of the above.  The text and, indeed, the whole Bible is ambiguous at best.  Who are we kidding?  Faith is ambiguous.  It encompasses surety and doubt, light and darkness, life and death.  I don’t really get wrapped up in what “really” happened.  It doesn’t bother me if this is actually talking about Hezekiah.  But it was part of the Matthean writer’s tradition.  It meant something to him.  Somewhere in the words, in the text of his faith, he saw God.  He felt God.  To him, it meant Immanuel.  And so, what better way to depict the first century nativity story that we love?  The coming of God WAS foretold–over and over and over again–through sacred stories told and shared by a waiting people.  It continues to be told, the story of God who breathed Creation into being, who entered the very Creation that held the God-breath, and who comes into each of our lives toward the glorious fulfillment of all that was meant to be.

I don’t think that God ever intended to lay it all out for us like some sort of lesson for us to memorize.  God doesn’t call us to have it all figured out but rather to live it, to open our eyes to all the signs and wonders of the world, to all the ways that God walks with us, to all the ways that God calls us to follow, to become.  All of the above, the obvious and the ambiguous, are part of the Truth that God reveals (whether or not our human minds can fathom it as “true”).  The Scriptures are not an historic account of the world.  Oh, they have those echoes because the context in which they were set and written was indeed the world.  But the Scriptures are the story of God, a God who has always been with us, a God who is with us even now, a God who will come in final and promised glory when the world is finally swept in to that peaceable kingdom.

We are about to begin our journey to Bethlehem.  It is a road that is filled with ambiguities–loss and finding, sorrow and joy, fear and assurance, doubts and fears, a manger and a cross.  But along the way are signs of the God who is always with us, Immanuel, who carries us from moment to moment and from eon to eon with the promise of new life.  The Season of Advent is one that takes time and sort of muddles it.  We are swept into the past, the present, and the future, all at once. Then it happens again–over and over and over again. Time becomes merely a marker that we might sort of know where we are.  But wherever we stand, God has always been with us, God is with us now, and God will be with us forever.  That is Immanuel, God with us.  Let us go and see this thing that the Lord has made known.

If God’s incomprehensibility does not grip us in a word, if it does not draw us into [God’s] superluminous darkness, if it does not call us out of the little house of our homely close-hugged truths…we have misunderstood the words of Christianity. (Karl Rahner)

On prisoners of darkness the sun begins to rise, the dawning of forgiveness upon the sinner’s eyes, to guide the feet of pilgrims along the paths of peace, O bless our God and Savior with songs that never cease. (Michael Perry)

Lyrics: “The Handing Over Time”, by Carrie Newcomer

The creek beds dries and then it fills
The shadows lengthen as shadows will
The last wild roses go to seed
The summer birds they take their leave
As the light goes golden golden

Here we are here I am
Here we stand in the handing over time
All that shines all that rusts
In the light and borrowed dust
It all comes round and round again

Curtains of leaves drift away
The fields are filled with wheels of hay
The yellow finches fade to gray
At least the ones who choose to stay
As the light goes golden, golden

Here we are here I am
Here we stand in the handing over time
All that shines all that rusts
In the light and borrowed dust
It all comes round and round again

Something fine and true and deep
Happened when I was asleep
Something there right in my palm
It was here and then it’s gone

The creek bed dries and then it fills
The shadows lengthen as shadows will
As the light goes golden golden

Here we are here I am
Here we stand in the handing over time
All that shines all that rusts
In the light and borrowed dust
It all comes round and round again

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Scripture Text: John 1: 6-8, 19-28 (Advent 3B)

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…

¹⁹This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” ²⁰He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” ²¹And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” ²²Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” ²³He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said. ²⁴Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. ²⁵They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” ²⁶John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, ²⁷the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” ²⁸This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

Well, it’s Advent so we get more John the Baptizer!  It’s definitely sometimes hard for us to get our heads around John, so to speak.  I mean, a person who wears animal skins and eats locusts is, well, strange.  But putting aside his wardrobe choices or his culinary preferences, John is important to us.  He is called the forerunner, the one who comes not to BE the Messiah but to point us toward the Messiah.  John knew who he was and what he was called to do.  He was called to actually BE that veritable voice in the wilderness that we so desperately need.  He was called to speak the truth about who Jesus was and, at this point, who Jesus would be.  He was called to point to the Light that was just beginning to dawn.    

The Gospel passage that we read for this week uses that image of light.  For the writer of The Gospel According to John, the Logos was the light of humanity, the true light.  It was there from the very beginning.  Now in this Gospel, there are no customary announcements here of Jesus’ coming or angels appearing to Mary.  There is no typical birth story. I guess the writer of this Gospel left that to the other Gospel-writers.  But this is essentially the equivalent:  the coming of Jesus, the Incarnation, is the coming of the true light, the Light that always existed, which enlightens everyone and illumines everything.  We once again see Creation in its splendor, as the light folds into the dark void that was and life begins.  Think about it—it is hard for us to imagine—but there was only darkness before (not “nothing”, just darkness—a darkness that God created) and then God said “Let there be light” and life began.  The earth was from then on bathed in light and seasons.  And now, now God enters and invites us into the Light.  And John the Baptizer is there to wake us up and point us toward it.

We like the image of light.  It’s warm and illuminating and sort of comfortable.  But that’s not what this is.  See, John had a “way” about him and sometimes his words were not very popular.  I mean, he went around like some wild man in the wilderness preaching repentance, preaching that we needed to change, preaching about the one who was coming after him, preaching about the light that was just around the bend, a light such that we had not seen, a Light that would change the world and us with it.  “John,” we want to say, “Shhhh!…you’ll wake the baby.”

Admit it.  That’s where we want to be—at the manger, kneeling before our Lord, basking in the illumination of the star above and singing Christmas carols, and yet we still want to hold onto those shadows in our own life.  For there is familiarity; there is safety; there is that which we can control, there is that place to which we can retreat when life is just too hard.  And the light…We would rather the light be allowed to remain in our thinking depicted as a warm and comfortable place to be.  Just let us sit here awhile with this sleeping baby, the Christ child, there in the manger while the Star in the East dances overhead. 

But John the Baptist, John the Witness, the forerunner, was right.  This light is not a twinkling, intermittent light like those that light our houses this season.  This is not a warm, glowing, candle-lit light that makes us feel comfortable even as we are content to sit silently in its shadows.  And it’s closer to us than any star in the universe.  This light is different.  This light is so big and so bright and so powerful that sometimes it hurts to look at it.  Sometimes it is just too painful.  This light is so pervasive and so encompassing, that it casts no shadows.  The light of Christ, this light to which John pointed, is not a warm glow but is rather a radical illumination of everything around it.  This light shows EVERYTHING.  Yes, EVERYTHING.  The world is about to be unable to hide its shadow side.

In her book, Lighted Windows, Margaret Silf tells the story of when her daughter was born and how one of the first problems that they encountered was light.  She said that “to make sure that [our daughter] would always experience the presence of a gentle, comforting light if she awoke during the night, we installed a little lamp close to the nursery door.  It also meant that if she cried we could grope our way to her even in a half-asleep state.”  But they soon realized that even the little nursery light burned their eyes, especially after the third or fourth time they went into the nursery during the night, groggy from sleep with eyes burning.  “So,” she says, “we went to the local electrical shop to ask whether they had any bulbs lower than 15 watts!”  “It’s strange,” she comments, “how light that is so needful for growth and life can also be so hurtful when we are unprepared for it.”

In this Advent season, the way that we prepare ourselves for the coming of the Light is by abiding in that light.  Abiding is a strange word.  It means to await but is more of an action word.  I think abiding in the light means that we have to go and be in it.  That’s what John was doing.  It was as if John was saying, “you there, come now, come into the Light that is even now dawning.” You can’t just stay in the shadows.  God invites us into the Light.  That is why God came and burst forth into our humanness—to show us what full illumination looks like and to call us into the light.  So, during this season, we squint and rub our eyes.  But we continue looking even if sometimes we’re squinting at the light.  But the Light will remain as we get used to it.  We keep looking for the Light thinking it will lead us home but what if, just what if, the Light IS home, the place where we’re called to be.  It is glorious and uncomfortable, illuminating and clarifying.  But what if that’s where we’re actually supposed to be while we wait for whatever God is doing next?

And John the Baptizer?  He kept pointing toward the Light, kept loudly proclaiming who the Messiah was.  He was the voice in the wilderness.  It would end badly for him.  His life would end with his head literally on a platter.  He would die midway through Jesus’ ministry, the victim of a world that thought he was too loud and too zealous and because he actually understood what abiding in the Light meant.  But through it all, he was always standing in that light.  He understood that he was not the Light.  But he always understood that the Light was where he should be.  In this season, we need to go toward the Light.  We need to abide in the Light.  God came and showered Light upon the world.  And this season of waiting, this season of preparation, beckons us into that Light.  Go now.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t. (Blaise Pascal)

Lyrics: “Abide” by Carrie Newcomer

I will bring a cup of water
Here’s the best that I can offer
In the dusk of coming night
There is evidence of light
With the pattering of rain
Let us bow as if in grace
Consider all the ways we heal
And how a heart
Can break

Oh abide with me
Where it’s breathless and it’s empty
Yes abide with me
And we’ll pass the evening gently
Stay awake with me
And we’ll listen more intently
To something wordless and remaining
Sure and ever changing
In the quietness of now

Let us ponder the unknown
What is hidden and what’s whole
And finally learn to travel
At the speed of our own souls
There is a living water
A spirit cutting through
Always changing always making
All things new

Oh abide with me
Where it’s breathless and it’s empty
Yes abide with me
And we’ll pass the evening gently
Stay awake with me
And we’ll listen more intently
To something wordless and remaining
Sure and ever changing
In the quietness of now

There are things I cannot prove
And still somehow I know
It’s like a message in a bottle
That some unseen hand has thrown
You don’t have to be afraid
You don’t have to walk alone
I don’t know but I suspect
That it will feel
Like home

Oh abide with me
Where it’s breathless and it’s empty
Yes abide with me
And we’ll pass the evening gently
Stay awake with me
And we’ll listen more intently
To something wordless and remaining
Sure and ever changing
In the quietness of now

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Scripture Text: 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 is read during the Advent season in Year C (next year!).  The lectionary actually calls for us to begin at verse 2.  I don’t know why.  Maybe they didn’t want God to be getting angry at us in the midst of a pretty hard season. But that verse speaks of redemption.  It speaks of God’s ever-present faith in us.  It reminds us that against all odds, God welcomes us and comforts us.  God is ever-present.  I think maybe we are the ones that need to get it together.

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, 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 that is indeed something about which everyone should be joyful.

But, honestly, I worry that all of these passages from Isaiah, all these promises that the “something better” is just up ahead may become a bit overly-saccharine, like visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads.  I don’t want it to come across like someone is dangling life just beyond our reach to tease us or something.  That’s not the way it is.  It’s easy to claim that things will get better but what do we do in the meantime?  What do we do while we are waiting for the promised liberation or the prophesied salvation?  What do we do while we are waiting for our joy to kick in?  So, did we forget?  Did we forget what we believe—that God, the very Godself, the Creator, broke through all time and space and entered this world as a baby to become Emmanuel, God-With-Us?  So go back and re-read this passage with that in mind.

Notice that it says “God IS my salvation”—not God will be or God might be or God will come when we do something right.  God IS my salvation.  There’s no quid pro quo like so many of us are often led to believe.  That’s pretty major.  The God who is in our midst is here to save us—not to see if we’re being good or doing right—just IS.  So, why aren’t we drawing water from those wells?  Those wells are everywhere, flowing with clean sparkling water.  We just have to get a bucket and draw out the water.  Maybe that’s it.  Maybe we don’t always have our bucket handy.  Maybe we’re so preoccupied with what we will be and the way things will turn out for us that we have neglected what God has given us to draw out water, to draw out joy, to draw out Light.

The thing here is that we tend to push our hope for “that day”, for our joy and our salvation, for peace to surround us, off until tomorrow.  We count on tomorrow.  And, yes, tomorrow is there waiting for us to enter.  But tomorrow is affected by today.  What we do today leads into our tomorrow.  The journey is now.  So, don’t get so wrapped up in what we DON’T have.  Look around you.  Look around at the hints of joy, the hints of peace, even the hints of salvation and redemption.  Prepare to welcome tomorrow.

Remember that the season of Advent is nuanced.  It’s not just about the future.  It’s also about what we do now.  God created us in Joy.  God created us in Light.  God created us in water—lifegiving waters.  It’s all for the taking.  We are called to always go toward who we are meant to be, who God created us to be.  But the journey is here, filled with joy and light.  So, take your bucket and draw out the waters.  Take joy.  Take Light.  It is yours.  God IS our salvation.  Take that too, for “great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel”—in your midst…and will be tomorrow.

I salute you. I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got. But there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instance. Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy! Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty . . . that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it, that is all! . . . And so I greet you, with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.(From a letter by Fra Giovanni, 1513, as quoted in the introduction of “Take Joy”, by Tasha Tudor) 

Lyrics: “Another Day”, by Carrie Newcomer

Last night I awoke
I just couldn’t sleep
I’d read too much news
There was a dog on my feet
Too much to remember
Or not finished yet
A list of new worries
And older regrets

Let it go says my heart
It’s too late and too dark
This is just a chance to pray
Let it go for now darlin’
Tomorrow is another day

I’ve been looking for beauty
In these broken times
By making some beauty
In the world that I find
Some say it’s too late
It’s too much to brave
But I believe there’s so much
Worth being saved

Let it go says my heart
It’s too late and too dark
This is just a chance to pray
Let it go for now darlin’
Tomorrow is another day

Up on the roof is an old weathervane
In the shape of a fish swinging toward change
Let it go for now let it go

There are reasons to wonder
And witness to why
Troubled times coming
No way to deny
So I’ll lean into you
As you quietly breathe
And sense all that’s right
Still here and unseen

Let it go says my heart
It’s too late and too dark
This is just a chance to pray
Let it go for now darlin’
Tomorrow is another day
Let it go for now darlin’
Tomorrow is another day

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Scripture Text: 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24 (Advent 3B)

¹⁶Rejoice always, ¹⁷pray without ceasing, ¹⁸give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ¹⁹Do not quench the Spirit. ²⁰Do not despise the words of prophets, ²¹but test everything; hold fast to what is good; ²²abstain from every form of evil.

²³May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.

Rejoice always?  Pray without ceasing? Give thanks in all circumstances?  Are you kidding?  In this time of war and death and divisiveness and, well, just darkness, how in the world are we expected to rejoice, pray, and give thanks each and every moment? I mean, even if things WERE going all hunky-dory, we don’t have time to do that.  There are things to do. There are people to see, gifts to buy, gifts to wrap, places to go, and we still need to find time for ourselves to think, maybe read this blog, or whatever our life requires.  So, when we read this passage, we are a little bewildered.  Because we are used to looking at how to do something.  We want to know the easiest, cheapest, most energy-efficient, or most fulfilling way to accomplish things.  And, most of all, we want to be assured that we’re doing it the right way, that we’re on the right path.

But as much as we desire a “how to” booklet for our lives, that’s not what this is. (Honestly, that’s not really what the Bible is at all!) Paul was not laying down rules.  I don’t think he ever envisioned us living body-bent and knee-bowed 24/7.  I mean, how do we respond to that call to be a Kingdom-builder if we’re praying all the time?  No, Paul was not calling us to a life spent in prayer; Paul was calling us to a prayerful life, a life that is sacred, hallowed, a life lived in the unquenchable Spirit of God.  It has nothing to do with logging prayer hours. I mean, that’s helpful, even necessary.  But this is about perspective, about seeing everything that is your life as hallowed and holy, seeing all you are and all you have and all this is as of God, as prayer. Olga Savin says that “[the Scriptures] tell us that ceaseless prayer in pursuit of God and communion with [God] is not simply life’s meaning or goal, the one thing worth living for, but it is life itself.”  And a life lived the way it is called to be lived is the very will of God.  It is prayer.

As I said, I don’t think the Scriptures are meant to be “how to’s”; maybe instead they’re meant to shape us into those who can find the “ahhhs” in life.  Let me explain.  Think about all those diverse characters in the Scriptures. Abram and Sarai were just living their best retirement life.  And suddenly God has a new plan to make them the patriarchal couple of a “multitude of nations”.  And Abraham went toward the “ahhh”.  Moses was pretty much minding his own business and then ran across this burning bush.  Now, really, wouldn’t you either avoid a bushfire or try to put it out?  But Moses saw something else and said “ahhh” and his whole life changed. And those prophets?  The prophets tried desperately for generations to get the people to pay attention, to make them understand that the Lord was indeed coming, that things were about to change.  They marched this line of people straight through history, warning of something big and dark and ominous when God would step into the world.  Truthfully, that happened.  But it was very quiet, almost a whisper, as the Light again pushed through the darkness.  If you didn’t have your life honed in on that, you would have missed it.  In fact, God had to sort of announce it to make sure people were paying attention.  And, if you noticed it, you couldn’t help but say “ahhh”. 

Praying without ceasing, living a prayerful life, is about paying attention.  It is about looking at the pathway that you walk and noticing those things that make you say “ahhh”.   And then, it’s about turning toward them.  Maybe that means that you get off the well-worn path that is comfortable beneath your feet.  Maybe that means that you veer off in a direction you do not know, a way that you did not plan to go, a way that will change your life forever.  Ahhh….

Praying without ceasing is also about not limiting yourself as to what you think prayer is.  For some reason in writing this particular season of this blog, I have been more acutely aware of what happens when you write every day.  It’s hard.  It sort of saps you, leaving you sort of…the only way I can describe it is…raw and vulnerable.  But at the same time, it leaves you filled. It makes you new. It’s not just writing that does that.  That’s my thing.  Think of what you do that makes you feel like you should be doing it.  THAT’S yours—that’s the things that will leave you vulnerable and new.  Maybe that’s what prayer should be—a raw and sometimes uncomfortable vulnerability that leaves you filled with what you did not have before. 

You know those times when you have no words?  That’s a prayer.  The times when words seem to spill out of your life uncontrollably is a prayer.  The times when grief consumes you and you feel as if you cannot function is a prayer.  The times when laughter overtakes you in the middle of an otherwise-serene (and perhaps embarrassing) moment is a prayer.  Every menial task is a prayer.  Every walk is a prayer.  Every drive is a prayer.  Every time you log on to your computer is a prayer.  Every time you cook or wash dishes or empty the dishwasher (I hate emptying the dishwasher!) is a prayer.  Every time you hug someone or touch someone or connect with them on Zoom is a prayer.  Your life is a prayer—ALL of it.  That is what Advent shows us.  Advent wakes us up to the coming of God into the world and asks us to prepare.  But Advent also wakes us up to our own lives, prepares us to see what we’ve been missing and perhaps to notice a different way and to pray, to always pray. Look around. All you see, all you hear, all you are. It’s all prayer. Ahhh-men.

Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair. (G.K. Chesterton)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Scripture Text: Isaiah 35: 1-10

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.

OK, I think we’re officially halfway through our somewhat shortened Advent season.  We’ve traveled through the darkness hoping that we are at least coming near the Light.  It’s easy to get tired, frustrated, and even be tempted to give up the journey completely and in the midst of those feelings, this Scripture probably conjures up that somewhat an unreachable and perhaps inaccessible utopian paradise.  I mean, we keep hearing about it but sometimes it’s hard to keep focused on that in the midst of our lives.  When you read it in the context of where it resides, it almost doesn’t fit.  This passage seems to just come into the middle of rumors of war and desolation.  It seems a little out of place.  And, like us, those so long ago were asked to imagine beyond where they were.  They were asked to imagine a desert filled with flowing waters, a wilderness that blooms.  They were asked to participate in a vision of life anew.  They were asked to see something that, for the most part, might have seemed inaccessible.  They were asked to see something that really didn’t seem like it fit.

But it’s not inaccessible.  The whole idea is that it WILL come to be.  And Advent reminds us to look for that day, to imagine it into being.  It is a tension in which we live every day of our lives.  We want it, we imagine it, and, on a good day, we believe it will happen.  And then we turn on the TV—war in Eastern Europe, war in the Middle East, rampant gun violence, people being threatened, rights being taken away, and people that find themselves with, well, a fearful heart.  That’s actually not a great translation.  It’s probably better to read it as “ones whose hearts are racing.”  So, whether we live in fear or we live in stress, when life becomes just too much for us to imagine something different, we are called to walk in holy tension, a liminality, if you will, betwixt and between the turmoil and grit of our lives and the promise that we believe.

This is Creation’s repentance.  It is Creation turning around and going a different direction.  We’re familiar with that.  When we talk of our own repentance, it is uncomfortable to turn and launch off into another direction, to begin to travel where GPS is not available and to a place with a story that we are writing as we go.  But here we are told that the desert will bloom.  The desert—that mass of dry sand that blows in our eyes and clouds our views, the place where we cannot map where we go, the land where water is scarce and sustenance is hard to find—will bloom!  The desert will turn and become something new.  Blindness will become sight; deafness will become music; the lame will leap and the mute will sing.  The waters will flow with thirst-quenching sound and the lost way will become a clear path.  Yeah, I know our translation says that God will come in vengeance.  That is probably better translated as the promise that God will “deal with it”, a recompense, a compensation of sorts.  In other words, God will respond.  That is the promise.  And God’s response is that Creation will become something new.

So, if Creation can do that, why can’t we?  Why can’t we let go of our fears and our preconceptions?  Why can’t we become something new?  Why can’t we rejoice and bloom?  I think as much as anything, it’s because we’re human.  And God knows that.  So, we’re given this season of Advent, this time where we walk holding both the tensions and chaos of our world while at the same time, allowing ourselves to imagine something different.  Advent calls us to begin to see our potential and the potential of the world. Have you ever thought that perhaps our faith journey is not about finding God at all but rather finding ourselves?  God is here.  Whether we feel God or not, God is here.  But us?  How much faith do you have in yourself?  God has faith in you.  God created you to do this, to turn, to change, to repent, to bloom.  

We’re halfway through this season of journeys through darkness and holy tensions.  Here we turn, we turn toward the Light.  It’s only a seed right now but if we keep walking, this desert will spring to life and the world we know will become more than we ever could have imagined.  And so will we. So, keep walking. We have it on good faith that it gets better!

Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. (Suzanna Arundhati Roy)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Scripture Text: Luke 1: 47-55 (Advent 3B)

⁴⁶And 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.” 

So, I noticed something in the lectionary that I never had.  We have the option of this passage or a psalm for Advent 3B and again for Advent 4B.  (Apparently, the lectionary compilers REALLY wanted us to read it!)  I think they’re right.  We need to read it.  It makes those of us who are living a life of over-entitlement a bit uncomfortable but that’s all the more reason to read it. It is well known and, depending on how it rests on you when you hear it, it is either the beautiful and poetic “Song of Mary” or it is the hard-hitting, uncomfortable Magnificat.  Magnificat is Latin for “magnifies”, from the root magnificare, which means “greatly” or “to make much of”.  E. Stanley Jones, an American Methodist missionary from the early 20^th century, once called the Magnificat “the most revolutionary document in the world.”  It is said that The Magnificat so terrified the Russian Czars that they tried to outlaw its reading.  It’s been used in Argentina to call for non-violent resistance and the government of Guatemala banned its recitation altogether in the 1980’s.  It is a call to revolution, the beginning of a new society, the dawn of a New Creation.  It is the words that the rising authoritarian movement that is pervading our globe would dread.

These words depict God’s vision for the world (which is REALLY different from the world we have now!)  It is not a world where the best and the brightest and the richest and the most powerful come out on top.  It is not a world that we can control.  It is a world where God’s presence and God’s Light are poured onto all.  But it comes with a price. Those who have, those who are, those whose lives are filled with plenty are called to change, to open their lives to God and to others.

Because God will scatter the proud, those who think they have it figured out, those who are so sure of their rightness and their righteousness.  In other words, those of us who think that we have it all nailed down will be shaken to our core.  The powerful–those with money, those with status, those with some false sense of who they are above others–will be brought down from their high places.  The poor and the disenfranchised, those who we think are not good enough or righteous enough, will be raised up. They will become the leaders, the powerful, the ones that we follow.  The hungry will feel pangs no more and those who have everything–the hoarders, the affluent, those are the ones whose coffers will be emptied to feed and house the world. (Yeah, we probably need to stop right there, go back and read the passage again, and sit with it!)

⁴⁶And 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.” 

These words are indeed a magnification, a magnification of Light.  We have journeyed through the darkness toward the Light expecting it to save us, expecting it to shine its warm glow into our lives.  But when we read these words, we realize how bright the Light really is.  This Light doesn’t just shine on us.  It shines on everything, illuminating the dark corners and dirty vestibules of our world and exposing the pain and injustices that still exist and of which WE are still guilty.  It’s uncomfortable.  So, we are tempted to shrink back into the darkness once again.  The problem is that this IS a revolution and revolutions do not tend to be warm and fuzzy.  Revolutions have jagged edges that will cut into your heart and, yes, change you.

The Light is coming.  It is bright and magnified and something we’ve never seen before.  God came into the world to turn the world upside-down (or maybe right-side up).  God didn’t start it by choosing a great religious leader or a political powerhouse or even a charismatic young preacher.  God chose a girl, a poor underage girl from a third-world country with dark skin and dark eyes whose family may be so questionable that they are not even mentioned and whose marital status seemed to teeter on the edge of acceptable society.  God chose to shine the Light on the WHOLE world.  Our response is to reflect that Light and magnify it further.

Today is St. Lucia day in Sweden, Norway, and most of Scandinavia.  Now, to set the stage, keep in mind that we are a week away from the longest night of the year.  But in far-north Scandinavia, that is a time when there is barely light at all, The sunrise in Stockholm today is at 8:41 a.m.; the sunset is 2:37 p.m.!  The legend says that Lucia, a martyr from the 4^th century, carried food and goods to those imprisoned in the catacombs beneath Rome, wearing a wreath dotted with candles on her head to light the way.  It is a day of welcoming light into the darkness, of leaning in to a light that otherwise might not be at all.

Advent is the season when we learn to lean toward the Light, when the steady ground on which we stand seems to fly out from beneath our feet.  We struggle to regain our footing.  Lean in.  You know what’s happening?  You know what the uncomfortable nagging feeling is?  It’s the New that is sprouting to life.  God does this a lot.  Y’all, we’re getting closer! We just have to be willing to lean into it a little.

The Advent mystery is the beginning of the end in all of us that is not yet Christ.  (Thomas Merton)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Scripture Text: Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11 (Advent 3B)

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 speaks of hope.  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 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 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. In other words, all that work that you think needs to be done?  Get busy!  You’re supposed to be part of that.

All of us are part of what the Lord has planted and nourished and grown to bloom.  All of us are “they”.  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.  This Scripture may sound vaguely familiar to us for another reason.  In the fourth chapter of the Gospel According to the writer known as Luke, Jesus stands in the synagogue in his home temple in the midst of a world smarting with Roman occupation and cites these same words.  He acknowledges his own calling, his own commissioning to this holy work.  And he sets forth an agenda using the words of this prophet.  So, here we are reminded once again.  We are reminded what we as the people of Christ are called to do–to bring good news, to bind up, to proclaim liberty, to bring justice, to witness, to comfort, and to build the Kingdom of God.

But this is not a vision of repair.  It is not describing God’s work of putting things back the way they were.  That was never the deal.  Think newness.  Think something that’s never looked quite that way before. Maybe even think something you’ve never even thought of before.  That’s sort of the ongoing theme of God’s work when you think about it. I often tend to depict God’s Kingdom as a big dining room table.  There are chairs around it where we can all come together.  But when space becomes limited, when we don’t let everyone in the room, when there is no room at the table, we try to pull up more chairs.  Perhaps our differences and our varying notions of who God is makes for a crowded meal.  But, think about it.  God doesn’t pull up more chairs; God doesn’t even put more leaves in the table; God builds a brand-new dining room.

Many of you probably know the story of England’s Coventry Cathedral.  On November 14, 1940 in the midst of the Luftwaffe, the grand medieval Parish Church Cathedral of St. Michael was devastated by bombs and burned to the ground with the surrounding city.  Shortly after the destruction, the cathedral stonemason, Jock Forbes, noticed that two of the charred medieval roof timbers had fallen in the shape of a cross. He set them up in the ruins where they were later placed on an altar of rubble with the moving words “Father, forgive” inscribed on the sanctuary wall. Another cross was fashioned from three medieval nails by local priest, Arthur Wales. The Cross of Nails has become the symbol of Coventry’s ministry of reconciliation.

Today, the new modern Coventry Cathedral stands dedicated to forgiveness, unity, and redemption.  And next to it are the remains of the medieval cathedral. Emblazoned on the front of the altar are the words “Father, forgive” and flanking the altar are two statues—one given by Germany and one given by Japan.  And although physically attached to the new Cathedral, the Chapel made of ruins is not consecrated as an Anglican space, but instead is on a 999-year lease to an ecumenical Joint Council.  In the Chapel of Unity, people of any faith may gather to worship and receive the sacraments.  The old cathedral that once lay in smoldering ruins became something new.

In this Season of Advent, we are called to prepare ourselves for what is to come.  We are called to wait in hope and walk in light.  And, yet, so many of us are experiencing a world right now where we are barely able to sense that hope and see the light. In this hurting, divisive, warring world, many of us may identify more closely with the destruction in this passage than the good news.  See, we like the image of our faith being one of light and promise and that seems like what it should be.  But maybe even of more profound importance is our faith as one of shadows and remnants.  The truth is, God doesn’t call people to “fix” the world or, perhaps even worse, “repair” it so that it was what it was before.  At the risk of getting a wee bit political, when I hear the word “orthodoxy” (in the case of the church) or “originalism” (in the case of the interpretation of our laws), I think I tend to roll my eyes.  Maybe the reason we moved on, maybe the reason we changed, was that it wasn’t working for everyone.  Maybe God is calling us to something new. Maybe that is what our faith is about.

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.  Imagine it.

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)

Lyrics to “I Will Sing a New Song”, by Carrie Newcomer

I don’t know how
No I don’t know how
I’ve never done this before
At least until now

Learned by heart
The hard and easy parts
But I’m feeling it clearly
The old song’s grown weary

I will sing a new song
The old one’s carried me this far and for so long
But it’s time to walk on
Lifting up my voice and heart with a new song

How it grows out of the last echo
A new song for new needs
So I’ll follow its lead

Here I stand all I truly am
So I’ll rise and lift up
This new curious cup

I will sing a new song
The old one’s carried me this far and for so long
But it’s time to walk on
Lifting up my voice and heart with a new song

In each life of worry and strive
Must be room to untangle
And the singing of angels

All that lasts and must surely pass
All that’s common and holy
All that’s shot through with glory

I will sing a new song
The old one’s carried me this far and for so long
But it’s time to walk on
Lifting up my voice and heart with a new song

All that’s breathless and beautiful
All I’ve lost and I retrieved
All the songs that I was born to

Sing a new song
The old one’s carried me this far and for so long
But it’s time to walk on
Lifting up my voice and heart with a new song

I don’t know how
No I don’t know how
I’ve never done this before
At least until now

Grace and Peace,

Shelli