the words of Christmas....REJOICE!

......rejoice!!!

If joy is quiet, rejoicing is not.  Rejoicing is jump up and down, throw your arms in the air, dance around in silliness.  Rejoicing is so big your heart cannot contain it; your body cannot sit still.  Even the tone deaf among us are compelling to lift our voices in shout or song or just plain Alleluias!

rejoice!!!

The King of Glory has come in.

Who is this King of Glory?

A squalling babe in a wooden feeding trough in a backwater town.  

They have named him Jesus and he shall save God's beloved people from themselves.  

He will live and die in love. 

 He will rise as Love Triumphant on that third day.  

rejoice!!!

"Glory to God in the highest

and peace to God's people on earth"  Luke2.14

the words of Advent.....watch

....watch

Oh, I don't mean stand by my side and watch as I decorate the sugar cookies.  I don't mean sit on the couch and watch a TV show.  I don't mean 'watch' as in "Watch your little brother".

I mean watch......that forward leaning, powerful longing, light in your eye, nervous twitch in your step,  kind of watching.

Like a child who has been waiting for the circus parade, who hears the calliope pumping out its music just around the corner, and so she leans way - way - way out over the curb to watch.  Is it here yet?  Is it here yet?

I mean that kind of watching.

Watch.....for the king of glory shall come in.  Prince of Peace.  Wonderful Counselor. Newborn babe.  Savior of the World.

Watch.....he's just around the corner.

"While they were there the time came for her to be delivered........." Luke 2.6

the words of Advent.....hunger

hunger.......

First Collector: At this festive time of year, Mr. Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute.  ... A few of us are endeavoring to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth.

Ebenezer: Why?

First Collector: Because it is at Christmastime that want is most keenly felt, and abundance rejoices. Now what can I put you down for?

I bet you recognize Ebenezer Scrooge, one of fiction's defining characters, and we know his answer to this request for a donation.  NO!  We all know this miserly fellow who is not overwhelmed (quite the understatement) with the Spirit of Generosity at Christmas. [dialog compliments of the imdb.com website]

For the good of all humankind, and the state of our own souls, it is a blessing that few people are as tight as Ebenezer Scrooge.  Of the many ways in which folks celebrate the coming of the Holy One, feeding people is very popular.  Sure there are lots of folks who wish to give fire trucks to little boys; a baby doll for every girl, but at the center of our giving, is the desire that no one be without the most basic of needs.  So folks get fed through extra nice meals at feeding centers, and through many food baskets distributed among those in need.  We cannot make everything all right forever but we can make sure folks are fed for a day.  We can ease the hunger.

This was not the kind of hunger Matthew was speaking about in his beatitudes. Matthew wasn't focused on those who had missed a meal or two.  He was talking about the searching for justice and righteousness.

Yet, perhaps, this Matthew has managed to meld the two.  When you are deeply concerned about the hunger pains in another human being, you are experiencing a hungering for justice.  When you contribute to the feeding of others, you are participating in righteousness.

Giving....generosity.......sharing.  These are marks of a disciple, one who has been so touched by the love of God in Jesus that it just naturally overflows into the lives of others.  This Advent, let's pay attention to what we hunger for.......and how we go about easing that hunger.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled."  Mt 5.6

the words of Advent........witness

witness......

It is fairly easy to make it all about us.  What presents we are giving.  What presents we are getting.  What food we are serving. What parties we are going to.  It is fairly easy to make it all about us.

It is much more challenging to make it all about Jesus, the Christ child, the one who was born.  We have to dig deep in the decorations box to find the nativity set, and once giving it the place of honor on the mantle, we move on to other important things.  We have to wrestle Jesus' birthday away from our own inclinations to go over the top, pouring out gifts to family and friends in a wave of generosity and good feeling. We have to figure out a way to slow it all down.

We do this for our sake, because the spiritual center is in Jesus.  He is the gift who keeps on giving day after day.  He is the one who rescues us from ourselves.  He is the one who challenges us to live out the life God intended for each of us: a life of grace, reconciliation, peace, joy, generosity.

Don't bury Jesus in the manger's hay.  Put him on the shelf in your home and remember his eternal gift to you: a love that never fails.

the words of Advent.....longing

longing

When you travel to a foreign land, you begin to miss the most mundane of items.  Toothpaste that tastes familiar.  Restrooms that are located where you can find them.  The ability to glance at newspaper headlines and read them easily.  Oreo cookies.  It's all a part of the culture shift that naturally occurs.

With time you will notice differences in values, perspectives, traditions, customs.  As a woman you will stop extending your hand to a man you don't know - it's not polite, it's even a bit forward.  No matter what the urgency of your business, you will allow 15 minutes for folks to greet each other, gathering news about family members not present.  If you stay long enough, some of these things will seem perfectly normal.  You will adjust to a new way. [Although you will always miss Oreo cookies.]

Unless, of course, you were forced to leave your homeland, unless you were forced at the point of a gun to leave behind all you valued and march into unknown territory to become 'those people'.  Now you are an unwilling stranger in a strange land with limited power to change your circumstances.  That is when the longing sets in.

When the people of Israel were exiled to a foreign land, they longed for Jerusalem.  This is more than discomfort or awkwardness at new customs.  This is a deep desire to return, and not just physically, but to return to a time and place where you knew who you were.  They longed to return to a place where they felt some power over their lives, where they had history.  They even longed for the smell of the rain after the dry season and the special light at twilight.

Of course, longing has a bit of a glow around it; everything is slightly better in memory than in truth.  Longing is more about the heart and the heart's memory than it is about toothpaste and cookies.

Advent is the perfect season to examine again our longing for God's presence.  Do we seek only the familiar?  Is it our sense of powerlessness that we are trying to ease?  Have we painted a picture of God's coming that is fuzzy on the edges and all 'soft glow'?   Are we longing for God or for our own comfort?

May your longing for Christ's birth lead you to a deeper, richer, more powerful relationship with this God who comes to live among us.  Maranatha.  Come Lord Jesus.

the words of Advent......still

to strive - to make great efforts to achieve or obtain something, to do one's best, exert oneself.  That would be striving in its positive sense.  It is forward leaning, muscle building, goal oriented living.  It is that pressing onward that can give us some purpose and at the same time, a measuring stick for achievement.  In spite of the goal at the end, I think real striving is internally motivated.

to strive - to struggle or fight vigorously, i.e. "to strive against bias" where our effort and labor are put to the task of bringing something to a halt.  This definition lacks the upward mobility of the first perspective.  It reminds me of a person who is drowning: striving to stay alive: the swimmer will struggle and fight vigorously  even with the one who is trying to rescue them.  Strive has a different feel to it when used this way.

I bring up this little discussion around striving because just recently God allowed me this insight: it is time to stop striving.  Not necessarily for everyone (but perhaps there is a message in here for you as well) but definitely for me.  Now what was I supposed to do with that 'piece of advice'?

I am a grade A striver - especially when it comes to academics.  I will press forward, reaching out for more, working hard to both understand and achieve.  I will press myself and you as well onward and upward towards my current goal.  I have always taken pride in the amount of effort I put into things....whatever they might be.  If I decide that something is worthy, I will strive towards perfection.

All my striving easily leads me to a place where I can see only my way forward, and soon I am struggling against the future that God is opening for me.  I want to go right; God is leading me left and all my striving is pulling me under.

I want to move towards perfection, and here's the rub:  it's my perfection that I wish to achieve.  The harder I work to achieve for myself, the less I am doing God's work.  The more I am focused on my perfection, the less I am watching for God to be moving in the world.

The more I strive, the behind-er I get.  The more I struggle, the less I can hear, see, listen, watch for, be attentive to God.

So God sent me this gift this Advent.  God gave me permission to stop striving.  It is time to simply 'be' in the presence of God.  "Be still and know that I am God" the psalmist tells me.

Be still............be still...........I'm working on it.

the words of Advent....mute

mute

"When he did come out, he was not able to speak....."

That's Zechariah we are talking about, the father of John the Baptist.  An angel came to visit him, to tell him the great and wonderful news that his long barren wife Elizabeth would bear a son, and Zechariah was struck mute.  (Luke 1)

For the entire length of Elizabeth's pregnancy, Zechariah could say nothing.

Could this have been a gift from God?  For nine months, Zechariah lived within himself, in his own quietness.  God gave him not just time, but absolute quiet in which to contemplate this holy thing that was taking place before his eyes and in his life.

Taking the time to be quiet before the holy sounds like a good idea to me.  Even if it would be terribly difficult.........or maybe not.  Maybe being in the presence of the holy naturally leaves one struck mute.

Find a corner of quiet to encounter the holy this Advent time.

"He makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside quiet waters."   Psalm 23

an Advent word.....know

know......

You might think I'm talking about knowledge here, you know, book learning.  Or possibly something deeper like wisdom, that treasure that comes at the knee of experience.  But I want to go even deeper than that.

In the Bible, to 'know' someone is an intimate act.  In fact, it is the verb which is often used to describe sexual intimacy.  Knowing implies a deep relationship, the kind that is often found in a long marriage where one partner knows the other's likes and dislikes, foibles and fears, joys and dreams. Throughout the Old Testament, God is concerned that Israel know that God is God.

What does it mean 'to know God?'  First, God is God and we are not.  God is God and will power the entire universe, from this moment and into eternity.  God is the creator, the claimer of Israel, the lover of all through Jesus, the faithful one.  God is the one who comes to us, not in vengeance or fury, but in a desire for life for all.  God is the one who is willing to release a portion of himself and take on human flesh and live among us.  God is the one who doesn't rescue himself when faced with the worst this world has to offer....and therefore, we will always know that there is no place where God will not be.  What would you add to this list?

It is a fearful and awesome thing to be in relationship with this God....to know this God.

This Advent, take time to know this God more deeply.  Open yourself to a knowledge that goes beyond head to heart to your very soul.  This Advent, embrace and be embraced.

"Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46.10

the words of Advent.....ponder

ponder

Ponder is a word used by poets and pundits.  Most of us regular folks don't 'ponder' things much.  We are much more inclined to 'give it some thought.'  So, of course, I am going to ask you to consider the possibility that 'pondering' is much more than just thinking.

It is Luke's telling of the birth of Jesus that leads me to 'pondering.'  It all begins with an angel announcing to Mary "Greetings favored one! The Lord is with you.'  Luke then tells us that Mary was 'quite perplexed by these words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be."

 It is the greeting that precedes 'The Annunciation.'  (always capitalized).  The angel Gabriel has brought the message of  Mary's coming pregnancy, brought to her by the Holy Spirit.

She ponders.....and it is right and good for her to do so.  This is other worldly news which is going to have multiple 'this world' complications.

Then what do you know, nine months later, after a night of labor and delivery, some shepherds show up and weave some wild story about angels and heavenly announcements.....and Mary ponders.

Obviously Mary was no stranger to either angels or heavenly announcements, so maybe this second experience of cosmic intervention in her life is more than she had counted on.  Perhaps this second angel/heavenly message combination finally moved her to take it all a bit more seriously.  Maybe Mary was simply wondering whether there was yet another angel in her future.

Whatever the reason, Mary 'treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.'

There, in her heart, are words of God's favor and angel choruses and a child....a son....to be the Son of the Most High.  There in her heart are questions of how and why and what this will all mean.  All these things are there in her heart along with the love that bursts forth in full bloom at the glimpse of your new born child.  So it was exactly like every other mother who cradles the newly born in love, and exactly not like that at all.

You can see why this called for pondering.

I think God calls all people to ponder things like the intersection of their lives with the Divine Life. God calls us to ponder what our role might be in God's bringing of new life. However, knowing what the end of the Jesus story is, I also think that knowledgeable people are pondering how our story will end, and at what cost.

At this point in the story, Mary had no idea how much there would be to ponder.  We rarely do either.

Great are the works of the Lord, they are pondered by all who delight in them.  Psalm 111.2

the days of Advent.........listen

Listen......

I think this is the second step, although tomorrow I might think something else.  After we have heard someone......maybe even God.....speaking to us, we need to listen.  Intentionally.  Listen to exactly what is being said.  Pay attention.  Give heed.

When my children were still in school I would often ask (as do most parents) "Do you have any homework?"  I always heard the answer; I rarely listened to the answer on the first pass.  Just ask my children; I would ask this same question two or three times over the course of an evening.

I wasn't attentive to their message.  I never really took in what they were trying to tell me. It was all blah, blah, blah, blah to me (and frustrating to my children, I might add).

So a second task of our Advent work is to listen.

Mary, Joseph and Zechariah (father of John the Baptizer) all had an angel appear with a message for them, and I would probably have listened the first time around if an angel appeared to me. In the Bible, angels are messengers who bring messages from God to mortals.  Their first words are inevitably, "Do not be afraid" which leads me to believe that they were fairly scary to begin with.  We could reasonably conclude that the message God had for these folk was so important an angel was sent to deliver it.

Or......possibly, the appearance of an angel with such important messages is an indicator that we mortals are not really good at listening.  God sends an angel to ensure our attention.

You and I rarely get a glimpse of these kinds of angels - the scary, fall on the ground, 'what's going to happen next' kind of angel.  God sends us more ordinary angels - folks around us who bring us messages like 'love your neighbor' or ' live generously, you have more than you need' or 'feed the hungry'.  Perhaps if God sent these messages along with a solid Gabriel or Michael (the two archangels) we would pay more attention.  Perhaps.

It is too easy to hear but not listen.  In these days of Advent, let us intentionally listen for God's message to us.....a message from God......to us.  Just like Mary, Joseph, Zechariah and a whole host of other important folk in the Bible.  Listen for God's message to you.  I assure you, angel or no angel, it is important.

"Come, my children,listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord."  Psalm 34.11

the days of Advent.....hear

Hear O Israel.......

When I first starting writing this I began with the word 'listen'....an important beginning point for our Advent journey.  But, of course, listening presupposes hearing so perhaps we should begin our journey with 'hear'.

All kinds of things interfere with our ability to hear.  Let's start with distractions.  I was listening to one of the those phone tree messages, you know the sequence of 'press 1 for...' 'press 2 for...' etc.  All of a sudden I was at the end and had no idea which number I needed because I hadn't really heard them.  I was distracted by something else.  I pressed 1.  It seemed like a good place to start.  So distractions interfere with our ability to hear.

Then there are messages we don't want to hear; these are often a form of the truth. Truth is so very difficult to hear, to swallow, to accept.  There is a confrontational (one might say 'confessional') component to truth which requires a bit of time to digest.  The clarity of truth makes it all the more difficult to receive and so we often reject it out of hand.  So the second obstacle to hearing is the message no one wants to hear.

Then there is the din from competing messages which often come with glitter and flashing lights. Not distraction but attraction.  We are attracted by the glory or fun or success that the glittery message promises.  We are 'all in' and never even hear the other message in the wings.

So, it seems hearing is a good place to start our discussion because hearing is clearly more than the ability to pass an audiology test.  Music lovers are able to pick out the oboe's mellow tones among the full orchestra.  A mother can distinguish her child's cry from others three aisles away.  A mechanic recognizes when the whine of an engine spells serious trouble.

So when we talk about the miracle of God's promise to this world, like God's promise to Abraham and Sarah, the promise of a son, an heir....to be born in their old age...then perhaps we need to begin with the miracle of hearing.  It seems that their ears needed to be tuned to God's voice in order to hear this promise of new life in the midst of their failing health, their daily struggles and the racket made by all the other voices in their world.

I can imagine them saying to each other, "What? Did you hear what I heard?"  It is a questions I often ask myself.....at least when I am  paying attention and willing to hear what God has to say.

"Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Mark 12.29

the Advent of our Lord

I remember a movie from my youth "The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!".  It was amusing but one might want to wonder if amusing was the appropriate approach in an era of serious nuclear threat.........none the less, it is what I think of when we talk about the Coming of Christ.

Jesus is Coming!  Jesus is Coming! and of course everyone (well, everyone who even thinks about these things) thinks we are talking about the approaching celebration of Jesus' birth on December 25th - that benign holy day when a baby was born.  We stop - after an insane month of craziness - and look with wonder or sentiment or sometimes boredom at a newborn.  We are always touched by a newborn.  It's life in its purest form.

Then we move on.  By December 27th many houses have been stripped of any sign of the Christ child's coming.  It's over.....for another year.

So Jesus just keeps coming, year after year.  Because the birth of the incarnate God does not mark the end of this coming, it marks the beginning.  The birth of the Son of God marks the beginning of a new way of living, a new kingdom of life.  Life lived now; life lived later.  Life - living - ongoing - transformative.  Jesus just keeps coming and coming into our lives and into our world.  Jesus just keeps coming into every corner of our todays and tomorrows.  Jesus just keeps coming.

Advent is a time to prepare for the annual celebration of Jesus' birth.  It is a time when you and Jesus together remember the bountiful gifts of life already received and given.  It is a time when you and Jesus together focus on the power of Christ's presence in this world.  It is a spiritual time that involves serving and working in Christ's name.

Lake effect snow.........

When you live in an area that receives 'lake effect snow' you know that there's no predicting exactly what is going to happen.  We just watched West Seneca, a suburb south of the city of Buffalo, and Lancaster, a community north of the city of Buffalo get hammered with snow while whole portions of the city were left with but a dusting.  Some of our neighbors in Buffalo are organizing volunteers to help dig out others; some of our neighbors are wondering if their windows will hold firm against the weight of the almost 7 feet of snow outside their homes.

You just can't predict.  You know it's going to snow.  

You just don't know how much, how bad, how long. 

All this and I realized that life is much like living in a 'lake effect snow' region.  You just can't predict.  You know stuff is going to happen.  You just don't know how much, how bad, and how long.

What's a person to do?  Let's revise that:  what's a person of faith to do?  If you live in West Seneca, NY you need a good emergency snow plan.  If you live on this earth, you need a good emergency life plan.  Instead of water and canned food and back up generators, people of faith look to prayer and those few pieces of scripture they memorized long ago.

We start talking to God, asking questions, seeking answers, renewing a relationship that had fallen a bit fallow in the good times.  We re-discover the psalms and their words of sorrow and fear, longing and anger.  "Lord you have searched me and known me.  You know when I sit down and when I rise up...."  [Ps139]

Sunday mornings or Wednesday evenings we make our way to a fellowship of worship, leaning on other believers and the strength they have.  We join our Lord's table again, opening ourselves to the very presence of God in the Eucharist. We seek out community; we seek out the body of Christ.

Our vision changes.  We see what we hadn't really seen before.  Then, surprised at ourselves, we reach out to give to another. Exactly at that moment when we are so in need of spiritual and emotional support, when we need friends to be there for us, generosity wells up within us and we give to the others.

For your presence in our lives; for your faithful listening to our strangled prayers; for the power of the gathered community filled with the Holy Spirit; for the bread and the wine; for your love which knows no end.........we give you thanks O Lord.  Amen

When did we see you hungry and gave you something to eat?

In the end, it’s not about you.  It is about who loved you and where that love went.

Christ’s love for you flows over you every day, covering your naked places, quenching your thirst, filling your belly, binding your wounds, remembering your name when you are imprisoned.  Christ’s love pours out on you, naked, thirsty, hungry, lost, forgotten person that you are.  The God who gave you life in the beginning comes to you in the love of Jesus and gives you life again and again and again.

You know this because one day someone handed you a cup of water, that small gesture that claimed a shared humanity.  One day someone offered you steak when only oatmeal was on the table and you saw God’s abundance and mercy with new eyes and a satisfied stomach.  One day someone picked you up when this world, which is so far from the Garden of Eden we can’t imagine paradise ever existed, crushed you.

Until a day came when you saw another who was alone and forgotten and the love that claimed you poured out and claimed them as well.  One day the love that kept you upright found one who was laid low and it lifted them up.  One day the love that called you by name, the love that called you beloved, cried out in your voice and called the stranger beloved as well.

Paul called us clay vessels.  I think we are more like cracked pots who leak the enormous love of God that has been poured into us wherever we go.  We can’t help ourselves.  It’s what we are, what we do.  But we never do it ourselves, we just allow the water to flow through so God can bless others.

Right v. wrong, legal v. illegal

Some years ago Tom Selleck made a series of made for TV movies with Jesse Stone as the main character.  Jesse was the police chief in a small Massachusetts coastal town called Paradise - which of course, it wasn't.  He had been kicked off the LA police force because of his drinking and Paradise was his last chance in this lifetime to do police work.

I happen to enjoy the series and have watched it a couple of times but here's the point: one of Jesse's favorite sayings is this "You're talking about right and wrong.  I don't do 'right and wrong'.  I do 'legal and illegal'.

It's a wonderfully succinct summation of a long standing dilemma for most of us.  We are often confronted with stuff that is clearly wrong, it just isn't illegal.

I mention this because the Grand Jury in Ferguson, Missouri is about to hand up its findings.  I do not expect the police officer to be indicted.  The burden of evidence necessary to bring an indictment against a police officer is huge.

Which doesn't mean that what happened isn't wrong.  It doesn't mean that we shouldn't use this occasion to pressure all those in positions of power to confront the reality of our ingrained racism and re-tool, re-evaluate, and re-train themselves.

It is wrong that young black men need to have police survival skills.  It is wrong that mothers of teenage black boys kick into serious worry when their sons are late getting home.  It is wrong that we - the privileged white population - continue to make assumptions about others based on the color of their skin.  We try not to; we are often successful.......until we aren't.

It doesn't do anyone any good to claim we don't make judgments based on race, because it isn't true. Although I can't give you any examples, I know we make all kinds of judgments, subtle and otherwise based on racial assumptions that we don't even know we have (which is exactly why I can't give you any examples).

I believe that things are going to get very heated in Ferguson; I pray that there is very little and limited violence.  But I think Jesse Stone put it well.  In the end, this is about right and wrong, and we all know which is which

.

Hope is......

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,


And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land                                            And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
 It asked a crumb of me.

                             Emily Dickinson

Hope is God's greatest gift to God's beloved creatures.  Hope means tomorrow does not have to be like today. Today's sorrow can become tomorrows joy.  Today's storm can become tomorrow's sun.

Hope means that whatever my past, my future can be different.  Hope means that in the face of everything that would steal life away from me, there is life out there waiting.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." says the writer of Hebrews.

We call this hope Jesus.  Isn't there someone who needs to hear about this great treasure?