Scripture Text: 2 Peter 3: 8-15a (Advent 2B)

⁸But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.

⁹The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. ¹⁰But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.

¹¹Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, ¹²waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? ¹³But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. ¹⁴Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; ¹⁵and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. 

All in God’s time…don’t you hate it when people say that?  I mean, this whole waiting thing would be a whole lot easier if we just knew how long we actually were going to have to do it.  Well, it has become apparent (and this passage has confirmed it) that God’s someday is not the same as ours.  It makes sense when you think about it because, after all, as we get older, as we have more years in our quiver, so to speak, time seems to move faster for us.  So, God’s notion of time, as One who is, of course, eternal, would do the same and that is exactly the timing that God has envisioned.

So, we wait.  We wait for that day of the Lord.  Now, I don’t know if it’s going to dissolve in fire or not.  That seems a bit overly-dramatic to me.  I tend to err on the side of the Peaceable Kingdom thing, the ushering in of peace and unity and eternal shalom.  Just as an aside, fire is often a symbol for God’s divinity and work (think refiner’s fire from the Old Testament) so maybe the author is just expressing an image of the time when God’s divinity, when “God’s time” will be instilled in the earth.  But whatever it is, whatever it looks like, we don’t control it.  We don’t know what will happen or when it will happen or how long it might last.  So, we wait.

But lest we get bored with this waiting, the writer reminds us that there is stuff we’re supposed to be doing.  Now the first hearers of these words were probably more impatient than even we are.  After all, Jesus had promised to return.  So, these people would have started getting their affairs in order, completely convinced that the return was imminent in months or weeks or maybe even days.  But as time marched on and nothing happened, they had slowly begun to fall into a way of being that was, well, NOT filled with peace and righteousness, if you know what I mean.  Essentially, they had lost interest.  They had simply gone back to their lives, back to what they knew, back to what they could control.

I remember a science project that my class did together.  It must have been in 3^rd grade or so.  In what was probably our first introduction to botany, we were each given a little pot, some gravel, some soil, and some seeds.  And together we each planted our seeds in our little pot and placed them where the sun from the window would reach them.  It was a fun project, much better than sitting at the desk and listening.  But when it was done, it didn’t really LOOK like a plant.  The next day it looked the same.  And the next, and the next, and the next…it soon seemed to me to be a rather pointless endeavor.  Well, my little plant was in the last group (of course it was!) a few weeks later to begin to peek out from beneath the small bit of earth.  But you know what?  While we were waiting for that to happen, we watered it, we fertilized it, and we turned it around so that all sides would get sunlight.  Just because nothing was noticeably happening didn’t mean that we didn’t care for it and nurture it.  Things do not always happen in our time but that doesn’t mean we don’t continue to do our work.  That was the lesson.

That’s actually the point.  Our waiting, our holy waiting, is not passive.  Holy waiting is active waiting.  Holy waiting is waiting for that time that we do not control, that time that is not ours but God’s while we care for and nurture the world that is ever so slowly growing into being.  And as we wait, we are the ones that God is filling and gathering and sending.  We are the ones that are peacemaking and justice-building.  We are the ones that are feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless, wiping out racism and welcoming everyone into our midst.  We are called to be the manifestation of Christ on earth.  We are called to be the ones that help bring that Peaceable Kingdom in.  We are called to care for that little shoot while it roots and grows and begins to peek out from beneath the earth.

In this Season of Advent as we practice holy waiting, when we both remember those who looked for the coming of the Messiah so long ago and look ahead for Christ’s coming into our own lives, we are also reminded to live as if it’s already come to be.  The truth is, this IS God’s time.  It’s ALL God’s time.  And we are smack dab in the middle of it.  We wait for the darkness to be pushed away by the light but in the meantime, we need to do a little of our own darkness-pushing.  God is waiting for us to respond, for us to proclaim God’s love and mercy, for us to live “as if”—as if the coming of the Lord is now, as if God’s Spirit has already spilled into the earth, as if justice and righteousness was the only way, and as if we knew no other way to live.  Be patient.  It will all come to be in God’s time.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun.

                                                      -John Newton, “Amazing Grace”

Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God;  But only [they] who see, take off [their] shoes—the rest sit around it and pluck blueberries.   (Elizabeth Barret Browning, from “Aurora Leigh”)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Scripture Text: Psalm 85: 1-2, 8-13 (Advent 2B)

¹Lord, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. ²You forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin.  Selah.…

⁸Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts. ⁹Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land. ¹⁰Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. ¹¹Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky. ¹²The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. ¹³Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.

Selah.  It’s an odd word that seems to us to be sort of randomly inserted in some Psalms (and even a couple of times in Habakkuk).  The meaning for us is a little unclear.  Technically, the word means “forever”.  It is perhaps a derivative of the Hebrew word for “raise voices in praise” or even “make the instruments louder”.  Whatever the meaning, the insertion of the word in the midst of a passage indicates an intentional pause in the text. It possibly means to actually raise voices or add louder instruments.  Some also speculate that it could mean to bow or to raise one’s head.  However it is interpreted, it means to pause, to stop, to spend some time absorbing or meditating or just thinking about what has been said.

The Psalm begins as a “looking back”, if you will.  The people have been delivered from exile.  But they’re still struggling.  There is still wilderness in their midst.  The words are a reminder that God has delivered.  They have been returned from exile.  God has redeemed and forgiven the people.  But their memories of whatever they experienced God doing in the past seems to be slipping away.  They are in need of a reminder of restoration yet again so they plead that the God who has come before will be the God who comes yet again if they will only listen and pay attention.  And then we get yet another vision of the Peaceable Kingdom, where faithfulness rises up and righteousness is showered upon us, where peace and love reign.  But between the looking back and the peering ahead is a pause.  Selah. 

It’s a good lesson for us.  We have experienced the goodness of God.  We have cast our eyes upon God’s Creation and we have been reminded who God is and what God can do.  But then we get comfortable or we get busy or we get off track a bit and our memories begin to fade.  We sometimes find ourselves forgetting that this faith journey is ongoing.  We are not inserted into a Mach 1 spaceship upon our birth that is aimed for where we need to go.  There is not a map. There is not a GPS. I’m not even really sure there is one definitive plan. Life doesn’t work like that.  Faith doesn’t work like that.  It’s not a plan; it’s a Way. But we find ourselves in the wilderness yet again and we feel alone.  Selah.  It’s like we’re being told, “Just stop a minute.  Think about all the goodness that you have experienced.  Think about all the times you have felt loved and blessed.  Think about all those times that your faith carried you and all those times that God’s presence almost felt tangible.  Now remember. And pay attention. And walk.”

The truth is that we are not capable of maintaining that, for want of a better word, “faith high” on a permanent basis.  It’s too much.  And even that would eventually fall into some sort of comfortable familiarity.  Instead, God brings us through wilderness and blessing, through despair and faith, through loss and clarity.  And in between, we pause.  We remember so that we will know.

Have you ever thought that the season of Advent is sort of a pause?  Perhaps it is our selah season. It’s a look back, a remembrance of what God has done.  We read of deliverance from exile and forgiveness from wrongdoing.  And we look ahead.  We strive to imagine that Peaceable Kingdom that God envisions.  We try to see our world differently.  And in between, we pause and we prepare and we restructure our lives based on what God has done and what our faith tells us God will do.  Advent is our in-between time in which we are reminded that the God who has come near in the past, the God who has brought us to this place, is walking with us now and forward into that vision that God has for us.  As the Psalmist reminds us, God has gone before on this path we travel.  And now God walks with us as we follow the path.  Selah…forever.

Sometimes you sense how faithfully your life is delivered, even though you can’t read the address. (Ted Kooser)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Scripture Text: Isaiah 40: 1-11 (Advent 2B)

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. ²Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.  ³A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. ⁵Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” ⁶A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. ⁷The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. ⁸The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.  ⁹Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” ¹⁰See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. ¹¹He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

Yes, I know this Advent seems to have started in the dark and drear but hang with me.  There’s a reason.  Think about it.  Most of what God does starts in the dark—Creation, Mt. Sinai, Deliverance, even Resurrection.  It makes us pay attention; it makes us alert; it makes us awake to what God is doing.  So, again, we find ourselves in the wilderness.  We’ve been here before.  We don’t necessarily like it but we’ve seen it before.

And here the people find themselves in the wilderness, desperately looking for a highway, a way out, something that will show them the way.  They yearn for comfort, for deliverance.  They yearn for God to save them.  We’re no different.  When we find ourself in the wilderness, the main thing we want is OUT.  Wouldn’t life be grand if it came with some sort of map or internal GPS to help us with that?  But it doesn’t.  So we wander and we wait and we yearn for answers.

OK, another dog story…I’ve had several Labrador Retrievers.  They are smart.  Some of them are sort of scary smart.  They actually use logic and reason things out, which some people say only humans can do.  I will tell you that is not true.  I’m thinking, first, of Magellan.  He was really smart.  Magellan could open anything—gates, doors, kitchen cabinets.  It just seemed normal to him.  Magellan competed in hunt tests.  He achieved his Junior Hunter title and I still have the ribbon and the official change on his title (Maggie’s Prince Magellan JH).  But in the midst of competing in the series of tests for Senior Hunter, Magellan had other ideas.  He began to “figure things out”.  One day during a water test, he took off when he was told and swam toward the mark.  Then I saw it.  I saw that look in his eyes and a change in his demeanor.  I saw him turn around and look at where he was supposed to go and then turn back around.  He was almost to the bank on the other side.  He started to turn around and come back (which means he would have passed) but NO…Magellan saw the closer bank, the more efficient way to get back, and so got out and ran full speed around the lake with the duck in his mouth, returning with a look that asked, “didn’t I do well?  And I found a better way!”  I was told that Magellan was too smart, too logical, for his own good so we went home and lived our lives.  Then came Maynard.  I was prepared for a dog that couldn’t possibly be as smart as Magellan but Maynard was just as smart and just as logical.  But Maynard had something else.  He was street smart.  Where Magellan just ran through life as if the world belonged to him, Maynard paid attention.  Maynard would stop at streets and look both ways even before I would pull the leash, already having figured out that an altercation with a car would not end well for him.  The difference between them?  Maynard was a Rescue.  He had been found on the streets of downtown Houston, emaciated, flea-ridden, and heartworm-positive and trying to eat out of a garbage can.  Maynard had been in the wilderness. 

Wildernesses are always a part of our life.  Some are physical—deserts, forests, rainforests, caves, or, well, just getting lost.  Some are mental or emotional.  Some have to do with changes in our lives that just don’t feel like our lives.  And some are spiritual.  To reiterate, wildernesses are part of life.  There is no map.  There is seldom a road.  The winds may shift the sands in the path and rain may blind our way.  But sometimes the only way to get to the place we need to be is through the wilderness.  (Sorry, Magellan!) 

So, maybe God wants us to be a little street smart.  I looked up the meaning of that and found words like “awake”, “alert”, and “adaptable”.  Well, that sounds pretty much like our Advent journey to me.  Wildernesses are hard.  But there has to be a reason why there are so many in the Scriptures.  The wildernesses are not merely impediments that God has constructed for us.  I personally don’t think that’s what God does.  This is not a test.  A wilderness is a Way.  It is the way to a place to which we could not go alone.  It is a way to our awakening, to our paying attention, to our honing our faith muscles that we might trust in God and not just ourselves.  Perhaps the wilderness is the Way itself, the way we must walk toward where God is calling us to go.  Oh, don’t get me wrong.  I think God does provide comfort along the way and, sometimes, even a highway.  But maybe even the comfort that God provides is showing us that the wilderness is home. 

The promised land lies on the other side of a wilderness. (Havelock Ellis)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Scripture Text: Mark 13: 24-37 (Advent 1B)

²⁴“But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, ²⁵and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. ²⁶Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. ²⁷Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

²⁸“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. ²⁹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. ³⁰Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. ³¹Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

³²“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. ³⁴It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. ³⁵Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, ³⁶or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. ³⁷And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

‘Tis the season!  Advent is here, the time of preparation, the time of waiting, the time of that somewhat always-chaotic march to Christmas Day.  And, at the risk of stressing you out even more than you already are, this year’s season is even shorter than usual since the fourth Sunday of Advent is actually Christmas Eve!  So, yes, this year we have only three weeks of Advent.  What is THAT about?  So, we begin…

I know Advent is here because the stores have their holiday décor out, I’ve heard one or two Christmas carols, and I keep seeing that commercial where the red and green Hershey kisses play “Carol of the Bells”.  And, yet, there are things in the world that do not seem to echo the joyousness of the season.  There is still a war in Ukraine, a seemingly endless war only because boundaries were not honored and greed ensued, and now the Middle East has become a veritable powder keg of violence and distrust between neighbors.  And we find ourselves getting pulled into it in a way, find ourselves dealing with anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, find ourselves being forced to choose sides in a war that has way more than two sides, a war that is nuanced so that many things can be true at once, find ourselves fighting to keep our own democracy and defend it against corruption and authoritarian creep and those that think they should control others and inflict their beliefs on those around them.  And this Scripture doesn’t really help.  Why do we have to read about suffering and the end times on this first Sunday of Advent? What happened to that angel coming to Mary and Mary doing her pondering thing and everyone being joyfully reminded that the world was with child?

Read it again.  This Scripture is not about the end times.  This Scripture is about now.  This Scripture is about us.  See, if we look at this Advent season as only a season of preparation, a season of waiting for what follows this, for what comes next, we miss out.  If we spend this Advent season trying to somehow forget the world that spins around us, trying to ignore those things that make us uncomfortable, that we might have our ideal fill of nostalgia, we’re not giving this season it’s due.  This season, like the Scripture in today’s lectionary, is not a call to merely get ready for the next season; it is a call to an awakening.  This season is our awakening.  This season calls us to wipe the sleep from our eyes and, rather than just waiting, to be a part of what comes next.

The world is still at war, both actually and figuratively.  We are still fighting each other over our beliefs and our quest for power, over our control of each other’s lives, over our differences and our diversity in which God created each of us.  We try our best but sometimes the world seems to be splitting apart at the seams.  And into this world, into this messed up little world, God comes.  But we have to pay attention.  We have to stay alert.  We have to become those who stay awake.  Something new is about to happen.  Maybe the world will or will not get better.  Maybe the wars will or will not end.  Maybe nothing around you will change.  But you will.  And that makes it worth waking up. Here’s to this joyful season, the time of your great awakening!

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn. (Henry David Thoreau)

OK, I’m back. I’ll try to post something each day during this Advent season (short though it is!). I hope it aids you in your journey and your great awakening! Do me a favor. Don’t just read it. Digest it. And then comment back. It helps me and it adds to what others are reading. Let’s journey together! Drop me a line and invite others to either read or follow!….Shelli