ADVENT

ADVENT 4B: ‘Bout Time We Start Dancin’!

shelliwilliams ADVENT, Christmas Eve, Openness to God, Response

Lectionary Text: Romans 16: 25-27
Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.

In this Fourth week of Advent, we read this doxology along with the imminence of Jesus’ birth.  Read alongside the story of Mary as God-bearer, we have the sense that the full Gospel is starting to unfold.  This is in no way a “replacement” for the Law of Moses; it is that Law seen to its fulfillment in the new humanity, the new Adam, in Jesus Christ.  Gentiles have been “grafted” into a story that was already taking place, already in full swing.  This is nothing new.  It is, rather, the doxology.  For Paul, HIS gospel was the “unveiling” of something that had been around from the very beginning.

Scholars think that it is quite possible that Paul did not write these verses but that they were attached to the end of the letter perhaps AS a doxology, a statement of praise and proclamation.  But regardless of who wrote it, this is a statement of response.  It is, to use Paul’s words, an “obedience of faith.”  The Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ invokes our response; otherwise it is virtually meaningless.  In Feasting on the Word, Cathy F. Young quotes Helmut Thielicke when he says, “Faith can be described only as a movement of flight, flight away from myself and toward the great possibilities of God.”  The whole gospel in its fullness is about our response.  It is our faith that moves it and opens up the possibilities that God envisioned.

Advent is about letting ourselves envision what God envisions and then moving toward it.  Because into this world that often seems random and meaningless, full of pain and despair; into this society that is often callous and lacking of compassion, directionless and confused; into our lives that many times are wrought with grief and a sense that it is all for naught; into all of it is born a baby that holds the hope of the world for the taking.  We just have to be open and willing to take it.  The great illustrator and writer, Tasha Tudor said, “the gloom of the world is but a shadow.  Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy.  Take joy!”  This is what this doxology says:  All of this that has been laid out for you, all of this that has been created; all of this that has for so long been moving toward your life, take it.  Take joy!  Tomorrow will be your dancing day!

I love Christmas Eve at St. Paul’s.  I actually don’t know how to explain it.  It’s magnificent; it’s magical; it’s mystery.  It’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. It moves you into someplace that you have not been before.  It takes you out of yourself and gives you a glimpse, albeit a tiny, tiny glimpse, of what it’s all about, of why we’re here, of that to which we journey.  This will be my eighth year to participate in the processional that winds through the nave, encompassing everyone who is there in music and candlelight and incredible joy.  I say processional because, even though it comes toward the end of the service, it leads us to something more.  It leads us to our response.  It brings me to tears.  (I will say that in these last seven years, I have been brought to tears each year–six because it has moved me beyond myself and the seventh because, I have to tell you, Gail caught Emily’s hair on fire with her candle and had to hastily put it out with her bulletin.  Thankfully, Emily had very little hair product on her hair that night!  We were laughing so hard we couldn’t even see where we were going!  (See, you just don’t know what will happen when you let us loose!)

But the point is that this is our way of taking joy, of connecting to the mystery of the God who came and comes. Often, our choir will sing an Old English carol that I have grown to love (in fact, let it be known, that I want it sung at my funeral!)  because it is a song of joy, a song of deep abiding love.  It is the song that we should all be singing.  It is our invitation to joy.  The song itself is more than a carol.  It has additional verses (although some are extremely anti-semitic).  It tells the story of Jesus’ life, the Gospel, the Good News–the birth, the life, the death, the life.  It is the Song of Joy and our invitation to join in!      

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day; I would my true love did so chance

To see the legend of my play, to call my true love to my dance;

Sing, oh! My love, oh! My love, my love, my love, this have I done for my true love.

Then was I born of a virgin pure, of her I took fleshly substance

Thus was I knit to man’s nature, to call my true love to my dance.

(Refrain)

In a manger laid, and wrapped I was, so very poor, this was my chance
Betwixt and ox and a silly poor ass, to call my true love to my dance.

(Refrain)

Traditional English Carol
OK, the time is not here yet, but don’t you think it’s ’bout time we start dancin’?  Somehow our world has taught us to hold back, to not “count our chickens before they’re hatched”, to be reserved.  But God?  God just wants us to start dancing so that everyone else will join!
 
In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of taking joy, of realizing what God holds for you, of dancing the dance to which you’ve been invited!  Let tomorrow be your dancing day!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Putting On Shoes

shelliwilliams ADVENT, Humanity, In God's Image, Mystery, Openness to God



God became human.  Well, sure, God can do that if God chooses, but why?  Why would the Divine CHOOSE to become human, CHOOSE to live a life that includes suffering and fear, CHOOSE to live in this imperfect world?  It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  I suppose it’s part of that mystery thing.  And the truth is, we struggle with it.  We try to justify it.  You’ve heard it all before:  “God was the perfect human,” “God was only posing as a human,” or “It was part of God’s plan.”  Really?  God PLANNED to be born into poverty, PLANNED to be born into an oppressive society, PLANNED to struggle, PLANNED to be disliked, and PLANNED to die?  I don’t really know if that was all part of God’s plan or not.  Is it so hard for us to accept that God just CHOSE to be one of us?  After all, part of being human is being subjected to a certain randomness of order, to a life that, as hard as it is for us to imagine, is beyond our control, and to not only the free will of ourself, but also the free will, the choice to do right or do wrong, that others around us have. Being human means that not all of life is a predictable pattern, not all of life is planned.  But, nevertheless, God became human.  After eons and eons of trying to get our attention, God put on shoes and walked with us.

“Incarnate” literally means “taking on flesh.”  It means becoming tangible, real, touchable, accessible.  It means becoming human.  It means putting on shoes. In the book Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr calls it God’s “most dangerous disguise.”  After all, taking on flesh, becoming tangible, becoming real, touchable, accessible also makes one vulnerable and that is incredibly dangerous.  God put on shoes to show us how to be vulnerable, to show us how to give up a piece of ourself and open ourself to the Divine.

The Shoe Heap, Auschwitz, Poland

More than a decade ago, I had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz, Poland.  I expected to be appalled; I expected to be moved; I expected to be saddened at what I would fine.  I did not expect to become so personally or spiritually involved.  As you walk through the concentration camp, you encounter those things that belonged to the prisoners and victims that were unearthed when the camp was captured–suitcases, eye glasses, books, clothes, artifical limbs, and shoes–lots and lots and lots and lots of shoes–mountains of humanity, all piled up in randomness and namelessness and despair.  This is humanity at its worst.  This is humanity making unthinkable decisions about one another based on the need to be in control, based on the need to be proved right or worthy or acceptable at the expense of others’ lives, based on the assumption that one human is better or more deserving than another.

And yet, God CHOSE to be human.  God CHOSE to put on shoes, temporarily separating the Godself from the Holy Ground that is always a part of us, and entering our vulnerability.  God willingly CHOSE to become vulnerable and subject to humanity at its worst.  But God did this because beneath us all is Holy Ground.  God came to this earth and put on shoes and walked this earth that we might learn to take our shoes off and feel the Holy Ground beneath our feet.  God CHOSE to be human not so we would learn to be Divine (after all, that is God’s department) but so that we would learn what it means to take off our shoes and feel the earth, feel the sand, feel the rock, feel the Divine Creation that is always with us and know that part of being human is knowing the Divine.  Part of being human is being able to feel the earth move under your feet, to be vulnerable, to be tangible, to be real, to take on flesh, to be incarnate.  Part of being human is making God come alive.
  
In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of being human, being vulnerable, and knowing the God who is Divine. Take off your shoes and feel the earth move under your feet.  God is coming!  The earth is beginning to move!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

    

ADVENT 4B: The House of God

shelliwilliams ADVENT, Openness to God
Model of the Temple
Museum in Jerusalem, Israel

Lectionary Text:  2 Samuel 7: (1-5a), 5b-7, (8-9) 10-11, (16)
Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”…And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evedildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.

This text wraps up the promise that God made to Abram in Genesis 12.  The people have a land that they can claim as their own and they can live in peace.  And David’s reign as king has been pretty much legitimized. Things seem to be going well.  And so David envisions now a more permanent structure to house the ark of the Lord.  In other words, David now desires to build a temple in Jerusalem.

But that night the Lord intervenes by way of Nathan with a promise not necessarily of a permanent “house” but, rather a permanent dynasty, an everlasting house of the line of David.  David has risen from shepherd boy to king and has apparently felt God’s presence through it all.  He now sits in his comfortable palace and compares his “house” to the tent that “houses God” in his mind.  So he decides that God needs a grand house too.  God, through the prophet Nathan responds by asking, in a sense, “Hey! Did you hear me complaining about living in a tent? No, I prefer being mobile, flexible, responsive, free to move about, not fixed in one place.” God then turns the tables on David and says, “You think you’re going to build me a house? No, no, no, no. I’M going to build YOU a house. A house that will last much longer and be much greater than anything you could build yourself with wood and stone. A house that will shelter the hopes and dreams of your people long after ‘you lie down with your ancestors.'” God promises to establish David and his line “forever,” and this is a “no matter what” promise, even if the descendants of David sin, even if “evildoers” threaten.  
The truth is, we all desire permanence; we want something on which we can stand, that we can touch, that we can “sink our teeth into”, so to speak.  We want to know the plan so that we can plan around it.  Well, if this was going to make it easier to understand God, go ahead.  The truth is, this is a wandering God of wandering people.  This is not a God who desires or can be shut up in a temple or a church or a closed mind.  This is not a God who desires to be “figured out.”  This God is palatial; this God is unlimited; this God will show up in places that we did not build.  (and sometimes in places that we really wouldn’t go!)  This God does not live in a house; this God dwells with us—wherever we are.  This God comes as a traveler, a journeyer, a moveable feast.  And this God shows up where we least expect God to be—in a god-forsaken place on the outskirts of acceptable society to a couple of people that had other plans for their lives.  This God will be where God will be.  And it IS a permanent home.

In this Advent season, we know that God comes.  That is what we celebrate; that is what we remember; that is what we expect.  After all, this God we worship is the one that is with us, Emmanuel.  But have we planned too much?  Have we somehow convinced ourselves that God can be directed or choreographed or planned into being?  Have we forgotten what it means to simply build a house in which God can live?  Are you the one to build me a house to live in?  Go ahead, build it.  It will be magnificent!

In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of building a house of God.  There is no blueprint; there are no plans.  It has no walls, no ceiling, no floor.  It is open to the God who comes.  And know that God will come.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli
      

The Story of God

shelliwilliams ADVENT, CREATION, Darkness, Divine, Incarnation, Light
“Birth of Christ”, Robert Campin
ca. 1425-30

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

It began long before this.  It began in the beginning.  It began when God breathed a part of the Godself into being and created this little world.  And as the story unfolded, as God’s Creation grew into being, God remained with them, a mysterious, often unknown Presence, that yearned to be in relationship with what God had breathed into being.  And once in a while, God’s children would stop what they were doing long enough to know and acknowledge the incarnations of God.  Once in awhile, they would encounter a burning bush or a parting sea or an unfathomable cloud on the top of a mountain.  Once in awhile they would stop, take off their shoes, and feel the holiness beneath their feet.  But more often than not, they struggled in darkness, they struggled in war, they struggled in oppression and injustice because they didn’t see the Light that was with them.  God called them and God sent them and some were prophets and some were wise and some were yearning themselves to be with God.  Some wrote hymns and poetry telling of their yearning and others just bowed and hoped that God would notice.

This wasn’t enough.  It wasn’t enough for the people and it wasn’t enough for God.  God yearned to be with what God had created.  God desperately wanted humanity to be what they were made to be, to come home to the Divine.  And so God came once again, God Incarnate, into this little world.  But this time, God came as what God had created.  And so God was born into a cold, dark night.  But the earth was almost too full.  There was little room for God.  But, on that night, in a dark grotto on the outskirts of holiness, God was born.  The Divine somehow made room in a quiet, little corner of the world.  God came to show Creation what had been there all along.  And, yet, there was Newness; there was Light; there was finally Meaning; there was God Made Known.

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

In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of being a part of the story, of being Light, of being Life, of being who you were created to be in the beginning.  Give yourself the gift of making room for God.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli
    

THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT: Letting Go of Darkness

shelliwilliams ADVENT, Darkness, KINGDOM OF GOD, Light
St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
Houston, TX
December 11, 2011

On this third Sunday in the Advent season, we continue to talk about light, about the Light of God as it comes into the world.  We talk about a light that illumines, a light that shows the way.  We talk about light-bending and light-bearing.  And we are reminded that this is the Light that pushes away the darkness.  And, yet, we still live in darkness.  We still live with injustice.  We still live with fear.  And we still live in a world that yearns for God and searches for Life.

So what is the problem?  If God created Light and then came into this world as Light Incarnate, the living Light, then why is there still so much darkness?  Perhaps it is we that are holding too tightly to the darkness.  Perhaps it is we who just don’t want to let go of that to which we are accustomed, of that which makes us comfortable.  Perhaps it is we who rather than adjusting our eyes to the Light, instead choose to shield our eyes and close our hearts until the Light is easier to handle.  Perhaps it is we that cannot let go of the darkness, of injustices that we allow to exist, of exclusions that we do not protest and hungers that we do not feed, and of those places where education, or medical resources, or the very basics of sustenance and life are not supplied because it is just too difficult.  And, so, there is still darkness.  Oh, we know that it’s there.  But what can we do? 

Don’t you think that if it were completely up to God, the Light would already be encompassing our world and the Kingdom of God would already be living into its fullest being?  I mean, really, what purpose does it serve God to hold back on us?  Why WOULDN’T God want Creation to be what it was created to be?  Why WOULDN’T God desire a world of justice and righteousness and sustenance for all.  Why WOULDN’T God want a world that offers life to all of God’s children?  If God is truly omnipotent, if God is all-powerful, why is our world the way it is?  It is because this omnipotent God chose long ago to give up a piece of the Godself.  It’s called free will.  God gave the greatest gift to humanity imagineable–a piece of the Divine, the ability to make a choice to let go of darkness and be the Light.  And then God came, Emmanuel, God-With-Us, to show us how to be that Light, to show us what it means to be a child of that Light.  God has never intended to remove us from the darkness of our lives but rather to show us how to transform it into Light, how to transform it into Life.  God is not holding back on us; God is waiting for us to let go of the darkness; God is waiting for us to be light.

Light looked down and beheld Darkness.
‘Thither will I go’, said Light.
Peace looked down and beheld War.
‘Thither will I go’, said Peace.
Love looked down and beheld Hatred.
‘Thither will I go’, said Love.
So came Light and shone.
So came Peace and gave rest.
So came Love and brought Life.
(“And the Word Was Made Flesh”, by Laurence Housman)
This morning we lit our third candle.  The Light has almost encircled the wreath.  It gives us the image of the Light encircling the world.  And when it is complete, when darkness is transformed, then the Light of Christ will be born to all.  We are the light-bearers.  We are the ones called to be children of the Light, bringing the Light to all.  So, let go of the darkness that it might be transformed into Life.  Be Light. Be Peace. Be Love.  Be the Image of God.

In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of letting go of darkness; give yourself the gift of becoming the light that you were called to be, the light that points to the Light of God and brings life to a hurting world.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

ADVENT 3B: Bending Light

shelliwilliams ADVENT, Darkness, In God's Image, Light

Lectionary Text:  John 1: 6-8, (19-28)
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

Once again, we encounter John, who we now call John the Baptist.  But he’s really John the Witness.  Here, we are told that John is but a witness to something bigger.  He is there to point to the light of Christ that is coming.  But what makes John’s message uncomfortable is that he is always pointing to that which the light illumines.  For the writer of the Gospel According to John, the Logos was the true light bursting forth into humanity.  Rather than an angel announcing the birth of a baby, the writer is using John as a witness to point to that light as well as the purpose of that light.  We love the image of light but sometimes we are uncomfortable with full illumination.  I mean, here’s John, running around like a wild man in the wilderness preaching repentance, calling for us to change, and just being really loud.  Our reaction in this season is to respond with:  “John…shhhh!  You’ll wake the baby.”

After all, this is the Season when we celebrate the birth of Christ.  This is the Season when we want to give gifts to each other and spend time with our families enjoying a veritable plethora of high-sugar baked goods.  This is the Season when we want to decorate our houses with festive reminders of the joyous season and get dressed up and go to parties to celebrate the same.  This is the Season when we want everything to be joyous and beautiful and perfect.  But this John character just gets in the way, doesn’t he?  Doesn’t this come later in the Scriptures?  Doesn’t this come at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry?  Why do we have to think about this now in the middle of the birth stories?

The reason that we read about John is because it’s not about John.  He knew that.  Scary as he sometimes is, you can’t help but admire him.  He did not stand on convention and he really didn’t care at all what people thought.  He had one purpose.  He was to point to the Light.  In fact, when you think about it, he seemed to TRY to deflect attention away from himself.  Maybe that’s the point.  He was not the Light; he was the deflector.  It was his purpose to turn the attention aside and recast it toward the One who WAS the Light.  God created the Light for us so that we can see the Way, so that we can feel God’s Presence in our lives.  God created the Light that it might shine into our lives.  But God also created us in the image of the Godself that we might be able to also shine the Light away from ourselves, to deflect the Light back to God.  If we do nothing but bask in this incredible Light, we are surrounded in shadows.  But if we become a deflector of that Light, then the Light illumines even the darkness.

In this Advent season, we, too, are called to be witnesses of the Light.  It is not about us.  We, too, are called to turn God’s Light back toward God.  We are called to be Light-benders.  And you know what?  The baby’s already awake.  We just need to turn the Light toward the Christ that we might realize that.

In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of turning the Light away from yourself that you might finally see the Glory of God.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

(And if you’re interested in the full notes from the week’s lectionary passages, check out http://journeytopenuel.blogspot.com/ )

On the Other Side of the Manger

shelliwilliams ADVENT, Calling, Joseph, Silence
This past Wednesday night, I had the opportunity to lead an Advent discussion with members of St. Paul’s Hispanic Congregation.  No, my Spanish has not had a sudden improvement.  We slowly went through the discussion and the questions and answers by translating back and forth between English and Spanish.  (Boy, I need to brush up on my Spanish!  The closest I could get is that I would sort of understand the “gist” of the question before Nataly or Mireya translated it for me!)  But I must admit that I also had to brush up on the subject matter.  I must have drawn the short straw or something because my subject matter was Joseph of Bethlehem, husband of Mary, earthly father-figure (for want of a better word) for Jesus.  Joseph?  What is there to say about Joseph?  I mean, Mary has a big moment with the top angel Gabriel, followed by the entire world that waits for her answer.  She even has a song!  And she remains a top character in the plot all the way to the bitter end.  But Joseph?  I think if I were Joseph, I would attempt to renegotiate my contract or something.  I mean, he doesn’t even have a speaking role!  He has no voice!  So, really, what is there to say about Joseph?

We don’t really know that much about him.  His family was probably of Bethlehem, even though he perhaps lived in Nazareth.  One might surmise that he was there for work and, yet, Nazareth wasn’t exactly a thriving metropolis with numerous opportunities for a struggling carpenter.  (That probably meant that Joseph was a builder, the Greek techton, perhaps a stonemason.  After all, how much wood is there really in Israel?)  His and Mary’s was probably an arranged marriage.  Some think that he might have been older.  OK, there’s no real support for that, but whatever…But we know that he was righteous, probably a faithful “rule follower” of the Jewish law.  And he had plans.  He and Mary would marry and have children of their own.  He would have a son.  He would have the privilege of naming him.  But that was not to happen.  Instead, the lovely Mary goes and gets herself knocked up.  Think of what Joseph felt–betrayal, embarrassment, hurt, regret, confusion.  This was not the plan.

And then the dream.  Oh, that’s dangerous.  Biblical dreams never seem to help one’s plan.  Seldom does an instrument of God show up in one’s dream to tell us how great we’re directing our lives!  So, whether Joseph dreamed of an angel, or God, or his own conviction, he realized that in spite of all the rules that had been broken, in spite of the way that life had literally spit on his plan, he loved Mary.  He realized that he was called to be a part of this.  He realized that regardless of what the world told him to do–divorce her silently or accuse her publicly–he could not.  And so, there’s Joseph on the other side of the manger.  The picture is in every Nativity image we have–the Blessed Mary, the mother of Christ looking adoringly at the infant in the manger.  And standing across from her in silent commitment is Joseph of Bethlehem.

This silent figure does not, I think, get his due.  After all, his entire life changed as much as Mary’s.  His plans had to be shelved.  His rules were broken.  He was called to offer love and support and to raise this child, this child that, regardless of whether or not Joseph had a hand in the conception, would never really be his own.  The other side of the manger has no voice.  Instead, he was called to a silent commitment.  He was called to hold the child’s hand, lead him from the manger, and then let him go.  And then Joseph drops out of sight.  He was there twelve years later at the temple when Jesus left his parents but chances are that Joseph was used to Jesus going down roads without him by that time.

Not all of us are meant to be the stars of the play. Some of us have no speaking roles.  In fact, some of us never even make it to the stage. But the story is never complete without each and every one of us.  And those that stand with no voice in silent commitment and humble devotion are the hardest workers of all.  The years of Jesus’ life that were spent with Joseph are not documented in known Scripture.  They are not a part of our canon.  But Jesus had to have someone that took him by the hand and led him to the beginning.  The Gospel story did not just shoot out of thin air–someone was silently leading the way.  Someone early on had to make the conscious decision to silence the world and listen to God.  Someone had to stand on the other side of the manger.

I wish that the other night my Spanish had been not quite as rusty.  We were able to tell the story.  We were able to talk about what Joseph felt.  We were able to place the story in the proper context.  But there was an almost overwhelming silence.  When you’re standing on the other side of the manger, it is only God that you hear.  When there’s nothing to say, when you have no voice,  God still calls you to something bigger than you can possibly imagine.

In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of silence that you might hear the song of God.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli