Worship notes: advent four...

Introduction

For the past four weeks I’ve asked you to quietly and personally play

the role of the contemplative for Advent:  my hope has been that you would take a long, loving look at what is real and then playfully but faithfully see what the Lord might be saying to you through your everyday, ordinary, walking around experiences.  Frederick Buechner calls this invitation into contemplation listening to your life:

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

The apostle Paul says much the same thing in Romans 12 when he tells his disciples:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Each week during Advent our tradition has offered some Bible stories to serve as gentle guides for us as we listen to our lives. 

·   +  At the start of December we were confronted with the apocalyptic advice to stay awake – to practice contemplation – because no one knows except the Father when the Lord will break into our awareness so we listened to our habits and thoughts together.

·   +  On the second Sunday of Advent John the Baptist came to us in all his fury urging us to pay attention to the tension in our lives – to let go of some of our busy work so that this year our Christmas might be different – and we listened to our “to do lists.”

·   +  Last week Mary sang her song of embodied prayer and brought to light the deep promises of God’s healing grace that can be experienced in our flesh – and we listened to what our bodies might be telling us about God’s coming at Christmas.

And now there is the story of Joseph – his fears, his faith and how he discovers a greater fidelity born of compassion – and how that might guide us in our listening and contemplation. It would be so very, very easy to not listen to the fears of our lives as recorded in today’s gospel in our pursuit of the joys of Christmas.  Nobody does this well…

And yet I choose to believe there is value in honoring the last Sunday of Advent as we listen to our fears along with Joseph.  I know that I need to spend a little more time in the darkness to feel in my flesh something akin to Joseph’s quest for God in the midst of his anxiety.  You see, truth be told, this story could have turned ugly very quickly given the choices Joseph saw before him.  But like many of us in this season, he took the time to listen to his life and let God speak to him through his fears.

 Insights

So let’s tease out a few of the contemplative insights in this story before unwrapping the gifts of Christmas, ok?  There are two fascinating clues about listening to the fears of your life that are buried within the details of this story but they take a bit of amplification.  If we simply read through the text as a prelude to the feast of Christmas, it would be easy to miss them – and that would be a loss.

So first consider what we’re being told in the word Emmanuel.  It literally means “God is with us” and is found in both the Old and New Testaments.  The prophet Isaiah tells his king that a child shall be born in the midst of a war to save the people from their sins and his name will be Immanuel; over 500 years later an unnamed angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him that the child to be born of Mary by the Holy Spirit will also heal the sins of the people and he, too shall be called Emmanuel.  Now whenever we get a double-dose of a name on a Sunday morning, it is a not too subtle invitation to pay extra attention – even if we’ve heard this story over and over again – because something important is going to take place with this sacred double whammy.

·   +  And my hunch is that it has something to do with what Jesus reveals to the world:  Jesus will be the clearest sign of God’s nature and love that human eyes can take in.  Not the only sign, right?  There are obviously other signs in the world that would include the beauty and awe of nature as well as the march of justice in history.  What’s more, other religions have insights about the Lord that are sacred and true and we, ourselves, have had personal experiences that have opened our hearts and minds to the truth of God.

·   +  But most of these other signs that reveal something of the Lord – especially in nature and history – can be ambiguous and subjecting and open to interpretation.  But there is no ambiguity in God’s word made flesh in Jesus. It is pure love and grace from start to finish because the whole point of Jesus is “to reveal and redeem – to show us as much of God’s character as we can take in – and save us from our sin.” (Arland Hultgren in the Working Preacher)

·   +  I love the way Jesus himself speaks to this in last week’s reading when he tells his cousin, John the Baptist, if you wonder about the essence of God and my role in revealing the way of the Lord, look at what is happening:  the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

In his anxiety over how to best respond to Mary’s unplanned pregnancy

– and all the social repercussions that could follow – Joseph’s fears awaken in him a need for guidance.  That’s what the unnamed angel represents – God’s guidance in the midst of Joseph’s confusion – and as Joseph listens the angel confirms that Emmanuel is coming.  God is with us is coming. The clearest embodiment of God’s grace is coming – without ambiguity or question – and when Joseph wakes up from his fear, he is able to trust the way of the Lord and embrace Mary fully as his beloved and pure wife.

·   +  Are you with me on this point?  Was I clear in stating that the first insight into Joseph’s story has to do with Emmanuel – God coming to be with us – in a bold and unambiguous way?

·   +  I’m not saying all doubt and fear goes away in our real lives when we live by faith.  No, what I want to say is that when Joseph’s fear is most intense, God reveals to him a sign of profound comfort and joy.  I think the first insight is that Joseph’s fear gave him permission to trust the wild power of God’s unambiguous grace.

Sometimes, you see, people like you and me are just too damn smart for our own good.  We think we can figure out solutions to all of our problems.  After all, we have advanced degrees. We are smart and creative people.  But sometimes no matter how smart we are we can’t fix our problems or solve our fears.  We need a power and love GREATER than ourselves to do that and I sense that this is part of what Joseph’s story is telling us:  Emmanuel is coming to be with us if we’re willing to receive him.

Another insight in Joseph’s story of listening to his fear begins with the first words of Matthew’s gospel – in the genealogy – that part of the story most of us skip over.  But like the upside-down nature of the gospel itself, even in the words we think of as boring or irrelevant, there is often something sacred hidden within them.  The wise Jewish scholar who visited us a few years ago, Amy Jill Levine, suggests that the reason Matthew puts all those obscure names in the start of the gospel is because they gave Joseph a clue about how God’s coming can overcome our fears.

·   Specifically, Dr. Levine points out that in this genealogy there are the names of five women – Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba (wife of Uriah) and Mary – and each of these women not only link Jesus back to his royal roots in King David but also point to a way of being “unconventionally righteous.” 

·   You might recall that Joseph is described as a righteous man – a faithful Jew who was committed to both justice and compassion – and that was one of the reasons why he was afraid and worried.  In his religious tradition, a woman ought not to be pregnant before she came into the home of her betrothed.  So because he was a righteous man and unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace, he planned to dismiss and divorce her quietly. 

Apparently St. Matthew has spent a little time listening to the life of Joseph so he asks us to also listen to the lives of these five women because they were both unconventionally righteous but completely faithful to the Lord at the same time. Preacher Nanette Sawyer puts it like this:

Each of these women acted boldly and against convention in order to bring about some kind of justice… Tamar, whose husband died, was denied the protection of marriage so she tricked her father-in-law into giving her children, one of whom was Perez, an ancestor of King David. Rahab, a prostitute, was the mother of Boaz, another ancestor of King David. Ruth lay “at the feet” of Boaz and became the mother of Obed, who was still another ancestor of King David. See a pattern here? Bathsheba was taken from her husband Uriah by King David and became the mother of King Solomon, the next king in David’s lineage… (All of which) brings us to Mary, pregnant when she shouldn’t be, appearing to be un-righteous by conventional standards (yet who is clearly) doing the right thing (by carrying Jesus to birth.)

·   And here’s the kicker:  Joseph is being asked to become just as

scandalously righteous as these wild women of the Bible.  Because of his fear the angel of the Lord is able to push him toward just their type of radical compassion when it comes to Mary.

·   So this seemingly irrelevant genealogy is actually telling us that sometimes when we’re afraid we’re able to see a vision of Lord’s love that is greater than convention. In his fear Joseph is being invited to become a living part of that radical and upside-down grace that stretches all the way back the Exodus and continues into the very birth of Jesus. 

The time has come to be faithful and bold like these women, dear man, is what I hear the angel in Matthew’s gospel telling us through Joseph’s story.  And by listening to his fears, Joseph was able to do a truly healing and beautiful thing.

Conclusion

Now most of the time, I don’t think of my fear as an invitation from the Lord to become a person of unconventional compassionate.  I hate feeling insecure and anxious.  There is just nothing good about those feelings… except, of course, they can lead us deeper into God’s grace. 

The story of Joseph wrestling with his fears, however, gives me an alternative to either shame or denial.  His testimony is that God – Emmanuel – who is with us will not leave us alone. The 16^th century mystic, St. John of the Cross, said:  "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be a better light and safer than a known way.” 

And so when Joseph awoke from his fear, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.  He took Mary to be his wife but had no marital relations with her until she had born a son whom they named Jesus.

credits:

1) iglesiaanglicanadetodoslossantos.blogspot.com

2) Mary Sullivan Nativity @ fineartamerica.com

3) St. Joseph @ www.sjcpenfield.com

4) pegponderingagain.com

From small things...

The artist and creative theologian, Jan Richardson, has written:  A seed in the ground. A flame in the darkness. A child in the womb. Hope starts small and overtakes us, stretching the borders of what we have known.

Today, the husband of my secretary continues his roller coaster ride as the doctors try to understand how to restore a measure of health to his troubled heart.  Today my car is still "broken" and my friendly mechanic is "out of the shop" for who knows how long? Today my fragile and oh so neurotic puppy, Lucie, has been by my side most of the day as we try to reinforce a measure of tranquility amidst all her worries and skittishness. Today one of my sisters wrestles with coming into the reality of Christmas with her hubby being laid off. Today my father is increasingly frail as he stubbornly insists he can still live all by himself. Today my head cold is almost better while my chest sometimes aches and splits with the residual cough. And today Di is making vegetable soup after winterizing our bedroom in a bright Tucson-like Berkshire cave because the outward temperatures are hovering around 1F.

In other words, today is all mixed up:  it is blessing and curse, joy as well as sorrow right next to one another.  So often I just want one side of the equation - I want things FIXED - I want the joy and god damn but I want it NOW.  To which the quiet voice of the coming Christ Child says: you can want whatever you wish but it doesn't change how I come to you in the paradox.  Fr. Richard Rohr put it like this in this morning's reading:

What we’re doing in contemplation is learning, quite simply, how to be present. That is the only way to encounter any other presence, including God in prayer, Jesus in the Eucharist, and Jesus in others. The change is all and always on our side. God is present everywhere all the time. There really is not much point in arguing about IF and HOW Jesus is present in the bread and wine; simply be present yourself and you will know all that you need to know. It is an exercise in surrender and presence from your side alone. We know that God is always given from God’s side, but we have to learn how to receive such total givenness, which is a very vulnerable position for humans. So Jesus said “Eat it” and did not say “think about it,” which is our defensive control tower. The Christian strategy seems to be this: struggle with divine presence in one focused, determined, and assured place (bread and wine, which is just about as universal a symbol as you can get)—and from that moment of space and time move to all space and all time. That is the final and full goal.

Today, it would seem, has been a day of holding the givenness of my life tenderly.  Contemplation is, after all, taking a long, loving look at what is real.  And what is real right now is clarity and confusion, great blessing and deep anxiety, healing and hurt as well as light, dark and all the rest.  When I returned home from errands and church, from being out in the public and active, I sat at the table for a late lunch and ate a sacramental Ploughman's Platter of hearty bread, cheese, pickles and beer.  It was my closing act of contemplation for this day and one way of affirming the hope that grows from small things.

credits
1) www.takestockmagazine.com 
2) en.wikipedia.org

Healing our divisions...

The wise T-Bone Burnett - a beautiful mess of a man who is also one of my favorite musicians - once recorded a song called "The Trap Door." It is on the album of the same name and is essentially a rock'n'roll restatement of the Sermon on the Mount.  The opening verse confesses that:

It's a funny thing about humility
As soon as you know you're being humble
You're no longer humble
It's a funny thing about life
You've got to give up your life to be alive

You've got to suffer to know compassion
You can't want nothing if you want satisfaction

This morning's worship felt like the realization of this very verse:  we got 8" of beautiful snow last night so only the people who really wanted to be there got to church. Well yes as the 1 or 2 grumps who wanted to be there in order gloat over who DIDN'T make it!  And that's part of the paradox - part of the totality - the blessing alongside of the curse - the joy and the sorrow - the light and the darkness?  Nevertheless, there was a unique and playful spirit present today that was very attentive, very gentle and very focused.

One family brought a gaggle of girls to Eucharist because they'd had a sleep over the night before and wanted to see the church in the snow. A few young families got up early to shovel and snow-blow their way out to the main road.  And another 60+ people trucked through the sludge in order to sing praise to the Lord on the third Sunday of Advent when Mary's Magnificat shaped our prayers.

It's a funny thing about love
The harder you try to be loved
The less lovable you are
It's a funny thing about pride
When you're being proud
You should be ashamed

You find only pain if you seek after pleasure
You work like a slave if you seek out the leisure...

Watch out for the trap door - watch out for the trap door

Two things touched me in a profound way during today's liturgy:

+ First, I invited a lot of song during my message about singing Mary's song.  I gave examples that ranged from Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" to U2's "Beautiful Day" as well as the American civil rights movements go to song:  "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around."  When I called up the South African freedom song, "We Are Marching in the Light of God" some of my friends joined in singing along in understated harmony.  No prompting and no notice, just spontaneous grace. Later, three very different women in the band sang a stunning take on "It Is Well with My Soul."  As they sang my eyes were full to overflowing with joy as I remembered my friends, John and Pete, who turned me on to that song back in Tucson.  (They are celebrating 12 years of marriage this April and I can't wait for their visit from Texas after Easter!)

+ Second, I was made aware of how sacred and unique this community of faith is - not perfect, far from it - but sacred and filled with compassion. When I came in from hiking the field in snow shoes with Lucie and Dianne, there was a note from a long time member of the congregation telling me how deeply she loved today's music.  Of even greater joy, however, was her mother's enthusiasm for worship and willing participation in  Eucharist. No one could have ever seen that one coming but in love and generosity it was clear that there was a place for everyone at today's feast.

Fr. Richard Rohr recently wrote of the incredible blessing that comes to us as both

individuals and groups when we are open to the Cosmic Christ's reconciling of our divisions through the Cross.  Rohr puts it like this:

He made the two into one, breaking down the barrier keeping them apart. . . . He destroyed in his own person the hostility . . . to create one single New Humanity . . . restoring peace through the cross, to unite them in a single Body and reconcile all things into God. — Ephesians 2:14-16

What an absolutely amazing passage this is! It is an utterly new agenda for humanity which has never largely been followed. It demands a rather high level of consciousness and conscience.

In the mystery of paradox, if you try to rest on one side and forget the other, you always lose the Bigger Truth. The “Four Square Gospel,” revealed on the cross, is always Yes/And. As many sages have said, the opposite of every profound truth is normally another profound truth, and they must listen to one another for wisdom to emerge.

We’ve seen, for example, Christian cultures, like much of Latin America, Russia, and Europe, that are entirely centered on a pious, individualistic notion of the Cross, while losing any real sense of Resurrection for history or others. Justice for the poor, for animals, or for the earth was not even in the conversation. In the USA, on the other hand, we created a convenient prosperity gospel—trumped-up resurrection for a few and almost no reference to the pain and suffering of the world. Much of American evangelical Christianity up to now has had little capacity for self-criticism, and tries to get to resurrection without any acknowledgment of the cross that most of the world must carry. They limit Christ’s salvation to a very individualistic notion, and their “Christ” ends up being very small and stingy.

Jesus was hung on—and held together—the cosmic collision of opposites (revealed in the very geometric sign of the cross). He let it destroy him, as his two nailed hands held all the great opposites safely together as one: the good and the bad thief, heaven and earth, matter and spirit, both sinners and saints gathered at his feet, a traditional Jew revealing a very revolutionary message to his and all religion, a naked male body revealing an utterly feminine soul. On the cross, Jesus becomes the Cosmic Christ.

It is now 4 pm and the sun is slipping from view as the Advent darkness deepens.  This day has been a reminder of God's never-ending but always mysterious grace.  It has also been a reminder to give thanks for the experience of blessings... and especially to watch out for the trap door!

One year later...

As I watched the news last night, and took in the details of yet one

more school shooting in my beloved United States, I found that the tears were flowing before I even realized it.  On the wake of the anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT this makes: 26 school shootings this year, at least 11,494 clearly defined gun-related murders in the USA and 33,373 gun related deaths since Newton.  Take a moment to look at this graphic to take in the horrible reality of these numbers: http://www.slate.com /articles /news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html

Theologian and bible scholar, Walter Brueggemann, once described lament as "our most vigorous mode of faith... it is a spirituality of protest that recognizes what is not right in the world."  Lament rejects both denial of our reality and blame.  Lament is both clarifying and cathartic. What's more, lament helps us name what is real and what the Lord requires like nothing else.  In Jean Stairs' book on spiritual direction in local congregations, Listening for the Soul, she quotes Timothy Carson who speaks about "listening for the sounds of death that can awaken our souls from helplessness.

Soul-awakening is sparked by truth-telling protests that cry 'the world should not be the way it is.' These very utterances are daring declarations of intent toward a new reality and way of being in the world. They are defiant expressions of confidence that there must be something more beyond death. As paradoxical as it may seem, when the hurt, despair, demand and invective are fully voiced, we are alive in death and have begun to glimpse the possibility of life beyond death.

The poet, Ann Weems, puts it like this in her Psalms of Lament, a text that cries out to be reclaimed on this day.

O God, find me here

where the sun

is afraid to shine!

Don't you recognize your faithful one?

Haven't I known you

since the days of my youth?

Haven't I sung your songs

in the ears of our enemies?

Why then are you silent?

Why have you forsaken me

and left me to wail

in the empty night?

Why do you give me silence

when I ask for

the nightingales song?

O God, have pit on me

and enter into

the city of my pain.

Hear my cry

and come to me

that all might know your faithfulness.

From the icy coldness

of the pit,

I will praise your name,

for like a shepherd

searching for a lost sheep,

you will not give up

until you find me.

Here in the gloom

I wait for the light

of your coming.

Then I will shout

that my God is the God

who does not rest

until all are

gathered in

from the threat of the night.

There is a reason Advent is dark and sung in a minor key - and a big part has to do with lament.

Clergy are weird, too...

From time to time I fret about being too candid in my reflections on

ministry.  I take care (usually) not to denigrate as I wrestle with ways to both maintain confidentiality while thinking critically about real-life issues in ministry.  After all, I'm not writing CPE verbatims but rather daily reflections on the ups and downs of living into this calling at this moment in time.  So most of the time I trust that because God is bigger and more healing than my sins and mistakes things will work out.  But every now and again I try to step back and see if I'm crossing any lines that should best be kept private.

A few times, for example, my honey has read a posting and said, "Wow that is too harsh - and unfair - I'd take that down."  And she has always been right.  (She is often right but I don't want to confess that too often because humility is a blessing, right?) Those have come about when I've felt backed into a corner with no clear allies in sight. Thankfully that is a rare condition these days, but it has happened in times past. I don't know if those outside the world of church professionals know that sometimes their clergy get beaten-up emotionally by institutional bullies and have no place to go with their fears and wounds. Often it seems that even the wisest souls in the business world are stunned to find that people in their own church are sometimes cruel and mean-spirited to their clergy.

Now I will be the first to confess that most of us who make up the ranks of the clergy are... weird. If, as I posted yesterday, it is true that people in our churches are strange (and they are), it is equally true that many clergy people are just as strange (although in ways that are most often the polar opposite of their parishioners' weirdness.) So if you subscribe to the general wisdom of the Myers-Briggs typology of personality types (as I do in a broad sense) you will discover that most clergy are introverts while most parishioners are fundamentally extroverted.  Most clergy are fascinated by the "inward" spiritual journey when most church members just want the facts so that a problem or situation can be fixed.  The majority of healthy clergy like to work collaboratively with their lay leadership while a super abundance of church folk just want an expert to tell them what is right or wrong so they can get on with other concerns.

Most clergy have never worked retail while their congregations know all too well what it means to sweat out making a payroll.  Most clergy fret and fuss about stewardship drives but don't know very much about helping their people come up with successful strategies to raise money. As one Pentecostal minister said to me back in Cleveland in my early days, "Most liberal white clergy are afraid of money.  They think it will taint them. But Jesus told us to 'make friends with unrighteous mammon.' (Luke 16:9)" If memory serves correctly, Jesus also said something about learning to live in a way that was wise as serpents but gentle as doves, yes?  

In other words, learn how the professionals make money work for them - get them involved in your fund raising and organizational structures, too - so that you aren't always being pauperized. Reinhold Niebuhr said much the same thing to us in a different context when he wrote about the children of light always losing to the children of darkness because we don't know how real life in the fast lane works.  

I was thinking of that last night as I nursed the end of this freakin' head

cold at a meeting I forgot I had to attend.  Granted, when I realized I had to be out of bed, my splitting headache got worse; but I had no choice given other realities.  So, I was there with colleagues I value - and trust - and even love. And it could still be my crankiness born of this cold, but I kept thinking: most of the clergy in this group seem to LOVE meetings, while most of the laity HATE them.  Clergy seem to define their productivity based upon how many meetings they attend - and it doesn't seem to matter if anything gets accomplished - they were there so that is a good thing.  But I could see the eyes of most of the lay people glaze over after about 35 minutes - and that's another key difference.  And it makes our respective but very different weirdnesses complicated.

Thank God for my small group of clergy colleagues who meet monthly (a meeting I had to give up last night because I thought I could stay in bed with this cold only to discover I was double-booked with my secretary out of town).  With this group of comparably weird folk, we can talk about what it feels like to get bullied - and what to do about it. We can hold one another accountable, too for being too weird in ways that are unhelpful and incomprehensible to our lay leaders. We can laugh and pray about what a weird calling ministry is for us all. 

Another way that many clergy are different from the people they serve in Christ's name is that we are voracious readers in a culture that has left the print world behind.  In a book I bought a few years ago and just started to read, Listening for the Soul: Pastoral Care and Spiritual Direction by Jean Stairs, an important insight about Protestant clergy is offered.  She notes that because we have not embraced the Roman Catholic wisdom of the "Paschal Mystery" - how life regularly emerges from out of death - we rarely know how to help our congregations live into their reality.  Rather, we work to help them "fix" problems and respond to "crisis" instead of listening for what the flow of life, death and new life might mean.  We tend to resist the rhythm of the soul, she suggests, rather than rest within it.  We are often living in our heads because we lack a sacramental vision for ministry.  

There is, of course, a Protestant take on the "paschal mystery" in what Douglas John Hall describes as the Reformation's road less traveled: a theology of the Cross as articulated by Luther.  But this is clearly the minority report.  I have found myself drawn to both tradition's wisdom as I try to live into Peterson's reworking of Matthew 11: 28-30 with the key being the unforced rhythms of grace:

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.

Well, that's enough rambling for now.  On this cold wintry Berkshire Sabbath, in addition to nursing our respective colds, I think we'll get a small Christmas tree.  I came upon this quote last night and it feels like my Advent prayer: "Before you speak, think: Is it necessary? Is it true? Is it kind? Will it hurt anyone? Will it improve on the silence?"

People are strange...

Being a pastor is always... what?  Fun (no) - interesting (mostly) - challenging (sometimes) - weird?  YES that's it: WEIRD!  And I suspect that it has always been weird - in the lst or the 21st - century because, let's face it, Jim Morrison was right:  PEOPLE ARE STRANGE.  (Mostly lovable, often fickle but always strange.)
Yesterday, for example, I was in a conversation with a person of means who has chosen to decrease their annual financial gift to the church. Not because of any theological or pastoral problem - and not because we are using monies unwisely or unfaithfully - and certainly not because it is beyond this person's ability. No, after telling me, "I don't get much out of church these days..." (to which the response is ALWAYS well how much do you bring? or Well worship isn't about YOU!) the fundamental reason given for the decrease is because "I'm just a Sermon on the Mount kind of person..."  

Now, if you are as baffled by what that means as I am (now and then, truth be told) you might want to know my initial response. "Really? Christ's sermon on the mount? The one about radical servanthood, total dedication to the cause of the Lord and going well beyond the extra mile?  THAT sermon on the mount?"  To which came the straight faced reply, "YES, that sermon on the mount."  

So I paused, thinking to myself, "Dude, if you are REALLY a sermon on the mount kind of person you would be giving EVERYTHING to the cause of Christ rather than playing this charade," but remember I'm a pastor and this work is weird.  So I simply say, "I think you are off the mark with your reading because the sermon on the mount is about radical servanthood - living into the way of the cross - and trusting God in a bold way.  But you're going to do what you want to do no matter what I tell you about the Bible.... so there you go."  To which this soul smiled, suggested that maybe their gift might be bigger, shook my hand and departed.

Ok, I totally agree there are WEIRDER things people do and say but this just hit me hard. Perhaps because after 7 years of renewal ministry things are really starting to buzz - and we really need the financial support.  Maybe because the core of leadership works so hard in what I think of as sacrificial ways that these words seem like a cavalier and flip slap in the face. Or maybe my head cold is just making me extra cranky today and I should go take a nap. Probably it is a bit of all three, yes?

Almost 30 years ago one of my mentors told me that we should never go into this work to be appreciated. "Remember the story of the lepers who were cleansed by Jesus? Only one of the 12 came back to offer a word of thanks.  So don't expect gratitude doing this stuff." After all, the central symbol of this faith is a Cross, right?  As Advent ripens, I want to affirm that no matter how weird and strange we all are, God's grace is bigger and better.  Still every now and again I have to step back and listen to this song...

Premeditated resentments...

Christian Piatt recently wrote in Sojourner's:  Advent isn’t about expectations. As they say in 12-step groups expectations are little more than premeditated resentments. This just means that every time we set conditions under which we’ll finally be happy, fulfilled or content, we’ll inevitably be let down.

Premeditated resentments - that's almost as good as the Wailin' Jennys saying that worry is like praying for something you DON'T want to happen.  So Advent is resting and wandering into the open-ended mystery of God's presence.  Here's to a day of mystery...

Worship notes for Advent III...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Advent III - Sunday, December

15, 2013 - with special attention to the Canticle of Mary.

Introduction

This weekend marks the one year anniversary of the massacre in Newton, CT at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  I remember thinking to myself last year at this time:  “Certainly THIS horror – this sacrifice of our most innocent children – will awaken the hearts and souls of those who wield power to grieve and then act in bold ways for the well-being of all Americans.”  But I was too generous in my assessment and too quick in my hope.  According to the most careful and conservative analysis, there have been 11, 372 gun deaths in the United States in the past year and precious little has changed.

·    Well, that isn't entirely correct:  while it would be fair to say that precious little has changed when it comes to our leaders’ hearts and official actions, I sense that it is also true that at both the personal and grassroots level small changes are taking place that will one day yield blessings. I think of the crusade to challenge America’s gun violence organized by Captain Mark Kelly and Gabrielle Giffords; slowly and carefully, wisely and effectively they are both educating Americans about common sense gun laws and systematically taking on the big money interests that benefit from our inaction.  I think of the parents and friends in Newtown who have created the Sandy Hook Promise who are equally grounded in changing the gun culture of our land from the bottom up.

These efforts are small and personal – they are slow-brewing and long-baking - much like the season of Advent.  And over time I believe they have the potential to bring to birth things we cannot even imagine this year.  Like the late Nelson Mandela used to say:  Some things always seem impossible until they are done!  Remember when most Americans smoked in public?  It wasn't that long ago that we couldn't imagine living in a smoke-free environment, but now it is the norm.  Or South African apartheid:  who could have imagined how fast that brutal regime would collapse once Mandela was released from prison?  Some things always seem impossible until they are done.

Such is the subversive and quiet wisdom of Advent:  we practice trusting and waiting in the darkness until we know in our souls that in God’s time the light will come.  It is beyond our control.  It is beyond our comprehension.  And at times we feel like John the Baptist in this morning’s gospel asking Jesus:  ARE you the one we have been waiting for or must we look for another Messiah?  Are you the one who will bring us peace?  Are you the one who will give us God’s healing grace?  Are you the one or must we wait for another?

Now if we aren't paying careful attention we will miss the real insight for today because it is found in the brief Canticle or Song of Mary.  Like the upside-down truth of Advent spirituality itself, this song is buried in-between the anguished lament of John the Baptist and the bold Messianic declaration of the prophet Isaiah.  Did you notice that?  Right in the middle of the Old Testament and Gospel readings there is a wee canticle in the place where we usually sing the Psalm.  And we could overlook Mary’s Advent clue to us because it is so soft and gentle – and to be honest, because as Protestants we often overlook things that have to do with the Blessed Virgin Mary.  But that would be a big mistake, beloved, because Mary’s song unlocks for us the wisdom of Advent’s mystery.

Insights

You see, what Mary shares with us today is a song.  Yes, it is a carefully constructed theological song that has roots in Hebraic culture and the needs of the early church. And to be completely candid, we know that what Mary actually sang was likely very different from the words that have been recorded in the gospel according to St. Luke.  But like the scholar said about her study of the ancient myths:  While we know this isn’t historically accurate, it is still true.  And there are three things about spiritual songs that we need to call to mind lest we miss the beauty and truth of Mary’s Advent wisdom.

·   First of all, singing is the only truly embodied art form we have.  Drumming comes close but when you sing it is just your body that makes the music not an exterior instrument.  You bring air into your lungs, it passes over your vocal chords and comes out of your mouth in a way that makes YOU an instrument of the Lord’s peace. 

Small wonder that the Mennonites consider singing to be a sacrament – an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace – an action in space and times that gives shape and form to what St. John wrote at the start of his gospel. In the beginning was the word… and the word became flesh… and dwelt among us full of truth and grace.  Singing is incarnational theology – making the ideas and truths of the sacred real – through our flesh.  Duke professor of theology and sacred music, Jeremy Begbie, put it like this:  Sound… is the only major medium of communication that can vibrate perceptibly within the body… the lungs, the sinus passages, the mouth that vibrate in sympathy with the frequencies of the vocal chords… are a truth that can be felt in addition to being heard for sound… enters the body and IS the body. Singing is incarnational theology.

·    Second, because singing is incarnational, it helps us feel and then express

what we are thinking and praying and hoping for in life.  When you sing a lament, it feels sad and you know that pain in your gut.  When you sing “Joy to the World” you can’t help but want to dance and celebrate.  In fact, sometimes singing is the only way to express to God and one another what is going on in our soul. 

When the first openly gay city council person, Harvey Milk of San Francisco, was assassinated, thousands of people took to the streets singing “we are an angry, gentle people and we are fighting, fighting for our lives.”  When the American civil rights movement found itself backed up against a wall, attacked by police dogs and water cannons, they sang:  “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around, turn me around…”  In South Africa as Mandela led his people towards a new day that could not even be imagined in a popular consciousness shaped by apartheid, black and white sang together in Zulu:  “Siyahamb' ekukhanyen' kwenkhos…”  Last year as our church in Newtown buried some of the children from Sandy Hook – and no words could capture the full truth of that moment – they sang.  And what they sang is instructive:  O come, o come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear:  rejoice, rejoice Emmanuel shall come to Thee o Israel.”

·    First, singing is doing theology in an embodied way; second, singing gives shape and form to what is in our hearts; and third singing helps us experience and taste what living into God’s kingdom really means.  There is harmony in our music, there is beauty as well as rhythm, humor and humility.  There is energy to our songs and the poetic promise of what God desires but we have not yet begun to imagine. For, you see, when we sing to the Lord like Mary, not only do we give voice to our prayers, we enter into that blessing for a moment of time out of time.  Singing gives us a taste of what God intends for us within the everlasting kingdom – it doesn’t last – and it is fleeting, but it is real.  Now I don’t know if you have ever experienced that kind of ecstasy before, but I’m not making this up. Sometimes when you’re singing or listening to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” it happens, right?  You are lifted up and beyond yourself in a blessed way.    

I’ve had that happen at a U2 concert, too.  What’s more, I have been lifted up and beyond the pettiness of this world into something sacred when Garth Brooks sings “We Shall Be Free” – a good old country boy singing about racial harmony and marriage equality - or Springsteen singing about the martyrs of September 11^th in “The Rising” or even Montgomery Gentry tearing up the house in their prophetic “Hell Yeah” that reminds us that all too often bars and pubs are more hospitable to broken souls than churches, synagogues and mosques.

Those are kingdom moments for me when I am brought into a time beyond time and the ancient promise of Isaiah is realized for a moment:  The eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped; the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. Consider what is happening in Mary’s canticle:  not only is she articulating the promises of the Lord but she is entering them, too.  Preacher David Lohse has written:

Mary sings of God’s mercy, promising that God lifts up the lonely, the downtrodden and the oppressed, not just of her day, but of our own as well… According to Luke, when Mary sang, she didn’t just name those promises but also entered into them. Notice, for instance, that the verbs in Mary's song are all in the past tense. Mary recognizes as she sings that she has already been drawn into relationship with the God of Israel, the one who has been siding with the oppressed since the days of Egypt and who has been making and keeping promises since the time of Abraham (and Sarah.) The past tense in this case doesn’t so much signify that everything Mary sings about has been accomplished, but rather that Mary is now included in God's history of redemption.

Like Mary’s songs, I have come to believe that our songs don’t simply express spiritual blessings for another time, but they actually pull us into an experience of the new reality.  Do you know the old hymn, Blessed Assurance? Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine, o what a foretaste of glory divine?  Like Martin Luther used to tell his students, not only does the Devil flee from joyful songs, but we pray twice whenever we sing to the Lord.  Singing is a way to live into the promise of God’s changed world.  It is a way to experience and embrace the wisdom of Advent so that we, too, bring something of the Lord to birth within and among us.

So what I want to do with you right now is take a few moments to sing, listen, feel and pray five key songs from our faith tradition that have opened me to something of Advent’s wisdom as I encounter God’s kingdom of peace, compassion and healing like Mary.  Because, let me be very blunt here:   I don’t know about you but I need some blessing these days.  It is so easy to grow weary and afraid for so many reasons. And even though I know in my head that God’s light is coming into the darkness, I still need some encouragement.  Are you with me?  What did the old soul say to Jesus:  I believe, Lord, help my unbelief?  I think singing is one of the ways to do just that.

·    +  So let’s start with hymn #36 – In the Bleak Midwinter – and we’ll sing

just the first and last verse… What do you hear of the Lord’s love in this song?  What is our prayer?  And what is our encounter with God’s presence?

·    + Now try this one:  # 97 – Go to Dark Gethsemane – and we’ll do the first and last here, too: what does this song feel like to you?  If “In the Bleak Midwinter” felt desolate, this one feels like Sandy Hook Elementary school to me – only anguish – except… the one who has been sacrificed will teach us to trust beyond even our feelings.

+  What do you experience with hear this one – It Is Well with My Soul – When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul.  What’s going on here? 

+Two more: #260 – A Might Fortress Is Our God – first and last:  what’s going on here?

+ And then #309 – Of the Father’s Love Begotten – all three:  what do you experience here?

              

Conclusion

Each of those songs brings me into both the promise of God’s grace and the power of God’s promise.  When I find myself discouraged – or afraid – or confused or agitated as I often do, I find myself drifting back to one of those five songs.  And like Mary, when I sing them, I enter into a new reality and my heart is refreshed.  Not all at once – and it doesn’t last forever. But it helps.

Mary is a quiet and often overlooked prophet.  She isn’t as bold as Isaiah nor is she as loud and demanding as John the Baptist.  But like her place in today’s liturgy, quietly hidden amidst all the furor, she offers a better way – a healing way - a way that brings hope and light to our hearts when we don’t know what to say.  When John the Baptist fretted if Jesus was the one he had been waiting for, the Lord replied: go tell John what you see - the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them.

When I get lost, more than anything else the way of Mary’s songs comfort me:  My soul magnifies the Lord my God and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.




credits:
1) vivificat1.blogspot.com
2) bloomingcactus.typepad.com
3) fraangelicoinstitute.com
4) www.patheos.com
5) www.patrickcomerford.com