athering after worship... and 8 people attended. That was 10% of today's total - and another 3-4 told me they will be a part of our next gathering including a young woman who wants to be baptized (along with her baby!)Now here's what I find fascinating: two people are leaving the Roman Catholic tradition, two come from fairly conservative backgrounds that have become too narrow, some are gay, one is recently baptized and another sees connecting with our congregation in community as the next step in embracing the spirituality of Jesus while affirming her Jewish roots. As the United Church of Christ says: WHOEVER YOU ARE AND WHERE EVER YOU ARE ON LIFE'S JOURNEY... YOU ARE WELCOME HERE!
What's more, we're talking about people in the 30-50 age group: people who understand that being a part of our community matters to them in their quest for meaning and authenticity, people who want to share their joys and wounds with others who want to know and love them even AFTER churches have let them down, people who have serious questions about the faith but equally important spiritual insights and who resonate with our vision statement: We gather together in community with God and each other to reflect on our Christian faith, do justice and act with compassion.
For me this was Christmas morning after a whole year of Advent - the birthing evidence that God really is doing something new and life-giving within and among us - and what a great time for this birth to be revealed: on the last day of the Christian calendar. It would ap
pear that Mary's song is likely to become my Advent prayer this year because I guess I will always find something to laugh about and celebrate as the words of God's grace become flesh:
pear that Mary's song is likely to become my Advent prayer this year because I guess I will always find something to laugh about and celebrate as the words of God's grace become flesh:My soul proclaims the greatness of our God, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
who has looked with favor on this lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
who has looked with favor on this lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
You O God have done great things for me and holy is your Name.
You have mercy on those who fear you in every generation.
You have shown the strength of your arm
You have mercy on those who fear you in every generation.
You have shown the strength of your arm
and have scattered the proud in their conceit.
You have cast down the mighty from their thrones and have lifted up the lowly.
You have filled the hungry with good things
You have cast down the mighty from their thrones and have lifted up the lowly.
You have filled the hungry with good things
and the rich you have sent away empty.
You have come to the help of your servant Israel,
for you have remembered your promise of mercy,
The promise you made to our ancestors, to Abraham and Sarah
You have come to the help of your servant Israel,
for you have remembered your promise of mercy,
The promise you made to our ancestors, to Abraham and Sarah
and their children for ever.
Like the shepherds or the Magi, from time to time Mary and I also need to see or even experience some evidence that the work of God's grace is taking root in our lives. Last night, while reading the new book by Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me, I noted this sentence: "Left unchecked, acedia can unravel the great commandment: as I cease to practice my love of God, I am also less likely to observe a proper love of my neighbor or myself." Interesting... without being refreshed and helped back on track by some evidence of love in action, I can become detached - abstract - maybe even bored and then all hell breaks loose! And then Norris added this which is likely to be my other Advent prayer:
Were I to listen with an open ear, I might come away from a Lenten sermon of fasting better able to spurn the tempting feast of malicious gossip and the sa
tisfying art of maligning others in order to feel better about myself. When the church speaks (deeply) we do well to pay attention. Like when a master preacher like Fred Craddock defines the sin of sloth so clearly that it stings like a slap in the face. What we casually dismiss as mere laziness, he says, is "the ability to look at a starving child... with a swollen stomach and say, 'Well, it's not my kid.'... or to see an old man sitting alone among the pigeons in the park ans say, 'Well, that's not my dad.' It is that capacity of the human spirit to look out upon the world and everything God made and say, I DON'T CARE."
tisfying art of maligning others in order to feel better about myself. When the church speaks (deeply) we do well to pay attention. Like when a master preacher like Fred Craddock defines the sin of sloth so clearly that it stings like a slap in the face. What we casually dismiss as mere laziness, he says, is "the ability to look at a starving child... with a swollen stomach and say, 'Well, it's not my kid.'... or to see an old man sitting alone among the pigeons in the park ans say, 'Well, that's not my dad.' It is that capacity of the human spirit to look out upon the world and everything God made and say, I DON'T CARE."I am finding that icons of Mary are saying something to me as I get ready for Advent, too. Hmmmm... this is going to be a very interesting time for us in this old Protestant place of Puritanism as the season they tried to ban matures. And so the reflections begin...
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