SEASONS

O Holy Night

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nativity-lorenzolotto-15431

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.  (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2: 1-14, King James Version)

 

Mary and Joseph have arrived.  The crowds are almost too much to take, pushing and crushing as the couple makes their way through them.  Mary doesn’t feel well.  She really needs to just lie down and rest.  And when you don’t feel well, the last place you want to be is somewhere that is not home, somewhere foreign, somewhere so crowded, so unwelcoming.  They need to hurry.  There is not too much time left.

 

They stop at a small inn up on the hill overlooking the shepherds’ pastures down below.  Joseph leaves Mary for a moment and goes to make arrangements for a place to stay.  But when he returns, his face looks frustrated, almost in tears.  He tells Mary that the inn is full.  In fact, the whole town is full.  There is no place to stay.  There is no room.  But he tells Mary that the innkeeper has given them permission to at least go into the stableroom to keep warm.  He’s freshening the hay now.  He actually was very nice and was trying his best to make them comfortable.

 

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

 

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

 

God comes into a world that is unprepared for God, that has no room for God.  God comes into places that are unclean, unworthy, unacceptable for us, much less for the Divine.  God comes into places that most of us would not go, out of fear of the other, out of fear of the unknown, out of fear of the darkness. And there God makes a home.  The Divine begins to pour into the world and with it a vision of the world pouring into the Divine.  This night, though, is not the pinnacle of our lives but, rather, the beginning of a new chapter.  God comes, bathed in Light, in the humblest of disguises imaginable, into the lowliest of places we know, into the darkest night of the soul, that we might finally know that all of the world is of God, all of the world is bathed in the Divine.  God comes so that we might finally see life as we are called to see it and live life as we are called to live it, filled with mercy and compassion and awareness of our connectedness to all the world.  God comes so that we might finally be human, so that we might finally make room.

 

Perhaps the world will never be completely ready for God.  If God waited for us to be completely prepared, God would never come at all.  But this God doesn’t need our preparation. This God doesn’t need to come into a place that is cleaned up and sanitized for God.  Instead, God comes when and where God comes.  God comes into godforsakenness, into a world that is occupied by foreignness, where the need for God is the greatest, into a world that cries out for justice and peace, and there God makes a home.  God comes into the darkness and bathes it in light.

 

The time is here.  In this moment, the door to the Divine swings open and God and all of heaven are now bursting into the world.  If you stop and listen, just for a moment, you can hear the harps eternal in the distance as they approach our lives.  Can’t you feel it?  Doors opening, light flooding in, the earth filled with a new vision of hope and peace.  Maybe, just maybe, tonight will be different.  Maybe this is the night that the world chooses peace and justice and love.  Maybe this is the night that the world takes joy. Maybe this is the night when the world realizes that it is already filled with the Divine.  Maybe this is the night when we become human.  Maybe this is the night that we make room.

 

It gets darker and darker…and then Jesus is born. (Ann Lamott)

 

Merry Christmas!

Shelli

 

Bethlehem: The Road Ahead

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Journey to Bethlehem-FinallyIn those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.  (Luke 2: 1-5)

 

They felt like they had been climbing forever. The desert mountains seemed to be getting larger. They were doubting that they would make it in time. The looked up ahead and the mountain seemed to flatten out at the top. That would be good. It would give them a time to rest and try to get their bearings. As they stepped up to the flat part, they saw it. There…there it was…Jerusalem off in the distance. But there, right there, was Bethlehem. And in the still-darkened morning light, they saw a star that seemed to be right over the city. It was as if heaven and earth were coming together at that point. These hard days of journeying were coming to an end. But they also knew that things were changing. They knew that at this point they could never go back. But today…today would bring them to Bethlehem.

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Think of this day so long ago.  Bethlehem was in reach for this scared young couple who were so unsure of exactly what the world held for them.  They were rounding the final peaks of their journey.  But this day they found themselves no longer a part of their old lives and yet they didn’t really know what tomorrow would hold. But now, now they were traveling through a foreign land.  It was the land of Joseph’s family.  He had been there often as a child.  But the place was different somehow, full of those who followed this emperor, nothing like he really remembered.  The road was packed with travelers returning to the place of their ancestors to make their presence known to the government.  Joseph felt like he should know these people and, yet, they were all strangers to him.  Mary and Joseph did not feel like they were part of this new world and yet their old world did not exist.  There didn’t seem to be any room for them at all.

 

We are indeed standing on the edge of a brave new world, perched on a place that gives us view of what was and what is to come.  Oh sure, we do this once a year whether we’re ready or not. Once a year, the night of nights comes and we sing Silent Night and we light our candle and once again welcome the Christ Child into our lives.  Why is this year any different?  Because, in this moment, standing on this edge between who we are and who we will be has the possibility of changing everything.  This is the moment when we decide whether or not to turn toward Bethlehem or to turn and go back.  Standing in this place, a threshold of sorts, we see both roads, fully in our view.

 

We are not that different from that scared young couple or the myriad of folks that have answered God’s call through all time.  We find ourselves pulled between the life we’ve so carefully created and the life we’ve been promised.  It is hard to not hold so tightly to those structures that give us power and prestige and security.  And yet, God doesn’t call us to leave our lives behind but to live all that we are and all that we have within that vision that God holds for us.  And it is in this moment, standing here between the two ways that allows us to see how to do that, that allows us to see our lives the way that God sees them and journey on.  It is in this moment that God gives us new eyes and asks us to follow the star.  And if we do that, this year WILL be different.  We are standing in the threshold between a waiting world and one in which the Divine has already poured into our midst.  We live in the already and the not yet.  But for those who see with new eyes, the road ahead is the only one that makes sense anymore.  Because that is the way to Bethlehem.  Let us go and see this thing that has happened.  There’s a world about to be born in the form of a baby who is Christ the Lord.

 

This text speaks of the birth of a child, not the revolutionary deed of a strong man, or the breath-taking discovery of a sage, or the pious deed of a saint.  It truly boggles the mind:  The birth of a child is to bring about the great transformation of all things, is to bring salvation and redemption to all of humanity.

As if to shame the most powerful human efforts and achievements, a child is placed in the center of world history.  A child born of humans, a son given by God.  This is the mystery of the redemption of the world; all that is past and all that is to come.

All who at the manger finally lay down all power and honor, all prestige, all vanity, all arrogance and self-will; all who take their place among the lowly and let God alone be high; all who see the glory of God in the lowliness of the child in the manger:  these are the ones who will truly celebrate Christmas. (From Christmas With Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. By Manfred Weber)

 

Go humbly, humble are the skies, and low and large and fierce the Star; So very near the Manger lies that we may travel far. (G.K. Chesterton)

 

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

The Wilderness: Led Through

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Journey to Bethlehem-Wilderness

52Then he led out his people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. 53He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid; but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. 54And he brought them to his holy hill, to the mountain that his right hand had won. (Psalm 78: 52-54)

 

Mary and Joseph eventually came to a place near Jericho down the Wadi Kelt.  Jericho was warm and almost balmy, comfortable really.  It was probably a place of welcome.  And at that point Mary and Joseph would turn and head straight through the wilderness toward Bethlehem near Jerusalem.  The temperatures dropped and that added to the feeling of this forsaken desert that they had to traverse.  It was hard to stay on track in this wilderness.  The sands would blow with the wind and the pathway seemed to move beneath their feet.  It was the last part of their journey, but it would be the most difficult.  Temptation to get off the path met them at every turn. Most of all, they were tired, oh so tired.  And yet, there was a strange sense that they were being led, guided on the pathway by some unseen force.  They knew that God was with them, guiding them to the place that they were called to go.  All they had to do was walk and listen and trust that God was with them.  “Be not afraid,” the angel had said.  It was now that those words were needed more than ever.  The holy city was beckoning but the journey was one that they had never walked before.

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The wilderness seems to be a repeating theme, doesn’t it?  The wilderness is always there, sometimes between where we are and where we are called to go.  Sometimes, we, too, have to turn, change our course, and head straight into the wilderness.  And there, God leads us through—not around, but through.  There are no shortcuts.  God leads us through, helping us navigate the rough paths and the difficult sightlines, even when the sands seem to move our pathways beneath our feet, and, when the time is right, God brings us home.  Like sheep, we follow God to the place that we are meant to be.

 

But, like Mary and Joseph, sometimes we have to turn, to head down a pathway that God leads us.  Sometimes we have to go through a different place to get to the place that is home.  Sometimes that home makes no sense without our journey through the wilderness.  Three decades later, the child born to Mary would find himself again in the wilderness.  It would be his very undoing and then would be the place where he would begin again, the place where he would become who he was called to be and claim it for himself.  The wilderness is a place of Creation, much like the formless void that started us all.

 

So, on this journey to Bethlehem, perhaps God was leading Mary and Joseph to their beginning. And in the wilderness, before they arrived, they were being given a new way to see what God was about to do.  In this last of their Bethlehem journey, Mary and Joseph were becoming who God called them to be.  The wilderness is not often a place that we choose to go; rather it is a place that chooses us and through which we must follow so that we can arrive and on that holiest of nights know what part of it is that is ours to play not just for that night but forever.  In this moment, Mary and Joseph’s lives were changing.  There was no way they could back, no matter how tempting it was to control their own destiny.  God was calling them forward.  The Salvation of the World was waiting.

 

In the spiritual tradition, wilderness is the place where we leave the world behind and place ourselves at God’s disposal.. (Daniel Wolpert)

 

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Jordan River: Renewing Waters

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Journey to Bethlehem-Jordan

3The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over mighty waters… 11May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!  (Psalm 29: 3,11)

 

When Mary and Joseph got to the Jordan, it was such a relief.  The waters were calm and beckoning, as if they contained something life-giving, as if they contained life.  The river was a welcomed site.  It meant that the path that they had taken was the right one and for at least a while, the waters would be their guide.  They walked along the waters and listened to their voice.  It was as if they were giving them something more, washing away fear and hesitation, perhaps again telling them, “Do not be afraid.”  Somehow, this River Jordan, this simple body of water, called them in and sent them forth at the same time.  They stopped every now and then and drank the cool water and as it trickled down their throats, they felt renewed.  Things were going to be OK.  And somehow they knew that the River Jordan would be important for them, would somehow be the source of life.

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Three decades later, these waters would hold and give life yet again.  These same waters would be the ones that would claim Jesus, the baby yet to be, as God’s Beloved.  They would be the same waters that would send Jesus back into the wilderness to become who he was.  And then, the waters would give us life as well.  Water is the source of life in every way.  Creation began in the waters, swirling and forming until it was ready to emerge as the lands of the earth.  We began in the waters, protected in a watery womb until we could live.  And then we were given life again through the waters of baptism.

 

In a way, it is the waters that connect us all—Waters to land, oceans to continents, Creation to Life, Jesus’ baptism to our own, Bethlehem to Jerusalem.  We do not live hearing this story over and over again.  We are instead invited to become it, to enter the water and feel its power, to live the story and become someone new.  Perhaps it really is the waters that hold God’s voice.  We just have to listen as they swirl around us.

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As Jesus stood, dripping with the waters of the Jordan that poured back into themselves, everything indeed changed.  In that moment, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, Creation and Eternity, manger and Cross, all who came before and all who would follow, were one.  In that moment, all that was and all that would be were almost indistinguishable from each other.  In that moment, all of those who were there that day and all of those who were part of the past and all of those who would come later in this walk of humanity, were swept into those waters, swept into the memories of what would be.  Remembering means that we realize that we are part of the story, that we, too, emerge dripping with those waters.

 

This time of waiting, this time of journeying to Bethlehem, is not to hear the story again but to become someone new, to change, to receive new life so that we can begin again.

 

The future enters into us in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens. (Rainer Maria Rilke)

 

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

Jezreel Valley: Traveling in Darkness

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Journey to Bethlehem-Darkness2The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined. (Isaiah 9:2)

Only one day into the journey, Mary and Joseph were feeling the weight of their trip.  As they left the familiar area surrounding the Lake of Galilee, they entered the Jezreel Valley.  Mary was tired, oh so tired.  The weather had changed and the world was dark.  It was hard to see the pathway they were on.  It was difficult to be assured that nothing was coming toward them from the side.  She so wanted to stop and rest.  But they had to keep moving.  And they of course could not go back alone.  It would not be safe.  So, they had to keep moving through the darkness.  The air was cold and damp, as if the darkness had wrapped around her.  She said a silent prayer for light, for light that would somehow push the darkness away.  Once again, she remembered the angel’s words.  “Do not be afraid.”  But the fears were consuming her.  Where was God?  God be with us.

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Tonight is the longest night of the year, the day of darkness.  We don’t do well with darkness.  We don’t do well with the unknown, with not being able to see our pathway.  And yet so much of our faith journey is made in darkness.  In fact, so much of our faith journey actually begins in darkness.  Creation begins in darkness.  Seeds sprout in darkness.  Birth begins in darkness.  Even light begins in darkness. And on this day of the longest night, we begin to turn a corner.  As the season of winter begins, we are reminded that the cold and the darkness does indeed wrap around the new life that will come to be, protecting it until it is ready to spring forth.

But we try our best to dispel the darkness, to light our lives with whatever artificial light we can find.  And we fill our lives with enough light so that we will never experience the darkness.  And because our lives are so full, there is no place to begin.  There is no room for light.  In my old neighborhood, there is a house that is an old French colonial with wonderful verandas lining both floors of the house.  For years, the house would outline the verandas with twinkling Christmas lights.  It was beautiful.  Then, for some reason I’ve never completely understood, they began to add more and more lights.  They started by stringing lights across the verandas three, five, seven, fifteen times.  Then the next year, they did the same to the house.  They must have had 50,000 lights!  I would describe it as a veritable blob of holiday lights—so many lights, in fact, that you could no longer see the lines of the house itself.  The house had been overtaken by light.  And, let me tell you, it was no longer beautiful.  Light is not pretty or comforting or even helpful alone.  Light is at its best when it illuminates the darkness and creates shadows and contrasts so that we can truly look at the light.

Part of our Advent journey is traveled in darkness.  It is a darkness where we wait for what is to come, not really knowing how or when God will come, but knowing that the light is just up ahead as we journey down this Holy pathway, never alone.  Traveling in darkness means that we must look to the One that guides us.  And, here, in the darkness, we will be able to see the light as it dawns on our world.

In every beginning, there is darkness.  The darkness of chaos seems eternal, Yet form emerges: light dawns, and life is born..  (New Union Prayerbook.)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

Pointing to the Light

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zechariah-elizabeth-and-john-the-baptist-the-other-nativity-story57Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. 58Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 59On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. 60But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” 61They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.” 62Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. 63He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed. 64Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. 65Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. 66All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him. (Luke 1: 68-80)

 

We don’t always pay attention to this story. It is not the story of a manger. It is not the story of an angel appearing to a young maiden. It is not the story of a star that leads its followers to the place they are called to go. It is the story of another baby, a baby named John. Born to older parents, parents who had never thought they would have a child, parents who were related to the young Mary, who held her in their arms after her encounter with the angel and told her that everything would be alright, that she was blessed, that she was not alone.

 

And so he became John. And, it says, they pondered what he would become. Of course, every parent does that, wonders what this child they hold will become. I’ve done it when I’ve held a baby that is only an hour old. You hold the baby and there is a sense that you are holding all the hopes of the world, the chance for things to change, to move just a bit closer to what God envisioned they could be. What then will this child become?  They may have dreamed that he would become a learned rabbi or a great leader or a successful businessman. They probably did not dream that he would make his way into the wilderness, cover himself with animal skins, and live off of the earth. They probably did not dream that he would place himself in the position he did that would eventually get him executed. They probably did not dream that this child they were holding would be the one that got it, would be the one that would point people to the Messiah, would be the one that would be the forerunner of the Messiah.

 

So, why do we read this during Advent when we are supposed to be preparing ourselves for the coming of Christ, for that manger birth of our Messiah? Because Jesus was not born out of or into a vacuum. Jesus, fully human just as he was fully Divine, had a mother and a father and, later, even siblings. And he had this cousin. Maybe they grew up together, played together, schemed and dreamed and played with their first-century toys. Maybe they came in muddied and torn and their mothers wondered where they’d been. See, God seldom sets us up to work alone. Even Jesus had the one that pointed people his way. His name was John. He was not the One, but he pointed to the One. So, “what then will this child become?” What the child became is exactly what God called him to be—the messenger, the forerunner, the One who would pave the path that God had outlined, who would give all that he was for Jesus and for what Jesus would bring the world.

 

So, then, why do we read this during Advent? Maybe because Jesus is not an historic figure for us to emulate; Jesus is not some future image that we aspire to one day meet; Jesus is God-With-Us, Emmanuel, here, now. And what, then, will we become? THIS Advent, let us become the one who points to the One, the one who helps pave the way for the world to know the Christ that comes. So are you almost ready?

 

I cannot create the light. The best I can do is put myself in the path of its beam. (Annie Dillard)

 

Grace and Peace,

 

Shelli

Blessed

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Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth
Painting in the Church of El Sitio, Suchitoto, El Salvador

(Advent 4C)

 

39In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” (Luke 1: 39-45)

Remember the story. Mary, the young maiden, betrothed to Joseph, probably planning her wedding and dreaming of her life to come, was approached by an angel. Now the Scriptures seem to lead us to believe that an angel coming was not that extraordinary but I’m thinking that angel-coming stories are grossly over-represented in the Bible because, frankly, it’s at best a little surprising and, to be honest, downright disconcerting. So, the angel, after calming her down (our clue that this was NOT an ordinary incident), asked her to do one thing—just one thing—to birth the salvation of the world. (Sure, no problem!) Just one thing. But here’s the catch, Mary: your life will never again be what it is now; your life will be one of extremes—incredible joy and the most profound grief that you can possibly imagine; your life will be nothing like what you’ve planned for it to be. Your life will be one full of moving from place to place and really never again feeling at home. There will be times when you are running from things and times when you are searching. And it may be lonely, oh so lonely. And, no hurry, except that we really need to have an answer now because, frankly, all this time that we’ve waited, all this time that we’ve hoped, all this time that we’ve prepared has now ended. Now is the time. But, other than that, no hurry. Take your time. And the world stopped, if only for a moment…

So, Mary, not really sure of what she was getting into, agreed. This young maiden who the world doesn’t even know will birth the Savior, will become part of the redemption of the world. So, the angel left and Mary stood there. What in the world have I done? I mean, I love God and all, I want to serve God, but what in the world have I done? So, she runs. She runs to a place where she knew they would take her in, where they would hold her, where they would love her. Elizabeth would have been surprised. After all, it’s not like Mary could text her and tell her she was coming! And when Mary entered, she knew. The child inside her knew. The world knew. The angels’ gossip line was going crazy! After all, the world was with child.

And then Elizabeth took Mary in her arms. After all, this was not going to be easy. The world expects so much and is sometimes incredibly unforgiving, expecting too much, No one knew the road that lay ahead for the young girl but it didn’t matter. Elizabeth would be with her, to hold her, to love her, to listen to her as she worked things through.

You know, that’s really what it means to be blessed—not to be showered with riches or surrounded by happiness or, God forbid, to have our lives turn out the way we plan, but rather to be held and loved as you walk this journey that God has laid before each of us. Mary’s journey mirrors ours. God calls us to change our lives, to sometimes let go of our plans and our dreams and trade them in for what God envisions that we can be. And it is there that we will be blessed. So, THIS Advent, may you be truly blessed!

Here is the God I want to believe in: a Father who, from the beginning of Creation, has stretched out his arms in merciful blessing, never forcing himself on anyone, but always waiting; never letting his arms drop down in despair, but always hoping that his children will return so that he can speak words of love to them and let his tired arms rest on their shoulders. His only desire is to bless. (Henri J.M. Nouwen)

 

Grace and Peace,

 

Shelli