Mary points a way through our darkness...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Sunday, December 23, 2012.  They have been shaped by both the Common Lectionary texts for Advent IV and the massacre of our children in Sandy Hook, CT.  I am grateful to both Sojourners and Working Preacher for additional resources. 

 

Introduction

Like many of you I have found this Advent to be troubling and complex:  I had hoped for a time of deep and quiet contemplation – a tender waiting for the birth of our Lord that would be bathed in silence and poetry – but that was not what happened.  Instead, I found myself busier than ever – not with obsessive incidentals or trinkets – but rather with prayer and tears and time in your homes as we embraced before surgeries or personal hardships.  And then came the massacre of our babies in Sandy Hook…

Our partners in mission and ministry at the national church office in Cleveland issued a prayer that cuts to the heart of the matter for me as this Advent season comes to a close.  Let me share it with you now:

Loving God, our hearts are broken as we take in the tragedy at Sandy Hook School in Newtown. Tears flow as we see the pictures of young children, teachers and parents fleeing a scene of terror and fear, and as we hear the shaken voices of those who escaped. But mostly, Holy One, we are simply stunned that this kind of violence has once again erupted in our nation. We lift our prayers to you now, prayers that your comfort will surround the families of those children and teachers who lost their lives, and prayers for the community of Newtown. We pray for the hope brought afresh to us by the birth of the Prince of Peace this time of year. May it be born in us and infuse all of our relationships. May your hope and peace touch this world as never before.  May your love crowd out our despair and feelings of helplessness. And may the star which rested over that manger light the way we take as peacemakers. In the name of the One who is to be born we pray. Amen.

This morning I want to use this prayer – and the appointed readings for the season – to put our grief and inner chaos into perspective.  Dare I suggest the perspective of the Christ Child about to be born within and among us?  As you know, I’ve asked that our children NOT be present with us for this portion of worship because I want to speak candidly with you and I don’t want to frighten them any more than they already are, ok? What’s more, I want to encourage you – especially our parents, families and educators – to join with me in a response to our fear and grief that challenges the cruel insanity of the status quo.

A number of you sent me emails after last week’s message wondering what we might do as a faith community to add our light to the current darkness.  One man wrote saying, “The President was right in embracing his children close and giving thanks to God for them… but if that is all he does – and all we do – then nothing changes.”  And that would be crazy because as I so often say out loud, the classic definition of insanity is… doing the same things over and over while expecting different results.

One of the passages of Scripture that guides my head and my heart is found in Ecclesiastes – it urges us as people of faith to be still and discern God’s invitation to action before jumping on any bandwagon – you may know it from the song “Turn, Turn, Turn.”  It warrants another hearing today:   

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

We are currently in a time of grieving – a time of seeking – a time of tearing and rending and weeping.  But this season will not last forever – indeed there are some things that need to be said and done right now in order that we move from silence to song and violence to peace.

Insights

Our parents and educators, for example, need to be speaking with their children about this current tragedy in ways that are faithful, honest and clear.  We need to be telling them not only what happened but where the Lord may be found – and what the Lord requires – in this ugly reality.  You see, we live in a time – and a culture -- where most of the adults in our children’s lives have no spiritual grounding.  That doesn’t make them bad people – please don’t mishear what I’m saying – but it does mean they do not have the resources and tools, the wisdom of ethical and moral tradition, to help them put this horror into context.

Christian Piatt, a pastor from Portland, OR, suggests five things our children need to know and hear from us at this moment in time that are grounded in our Christian faith

First what happened?   His response is:  Something terribly sad. A man hurt some children and adults in a school in Connecticut.  Some of them died. The teachers and students were very brave, and the community is working together to take care of those who survived and those who lost someone they loved. Even the President went there to be with them.

Second why did this man hurt those children?  The truth is that we don’t really know… Sometimes people do incredibly terrible things to one another, even if the person they’re hurting didn’t do anything wrong. Maybe he was very sad, or angry. Maybe he was sick. But whatever the reason, I think we should focus on helping those hurt by all of this work through their sadness and hopefully find some kind of healing. We need to remember to tell each other we love one another, to give an extra hug to someone who needs it, and to respond to people who are mean with kindness. I think it’s what God wants from us.

Third is could this happen to me?  You might reply by saying: We never know for sure when we’ll get hurt or when someone might try to hurt us. Like when you ride your bike, you know you might fall and get hurt, but that doesn’t mean we let the fear that something might happen keep us from ever riding again. Life is pretty much the same way. There are risks every day, but we get to choose to live our lives as fully as possible every day, even if there are sometimes that we might be hurt. But also know that we love you and will do everything we can to care for you and protect you. And there are lots and lots of people in your life who feel the exact same way.

Fourth why did God let this happen?  Here we need to be honest and tell our children that we aren’t completely clear about this.  But also tell them that we “choose to believe that God is at the beginning of all life:  mine, yours and everyone’s. God is also in the love that holds us together. It’s what helps make our lives special and beautiful. But there is always a risk with love. There’s a chance our hearts will be broken, but that’s not a good enough reason to stop loving. It’s hard to find God in something so terrible, so dark, so ugly as all of this. But I do see God in the way we all come together in response to this kind of hurt. We may be mean to each other sometimes, but we can’t ever get rid of love. That’s where I see God in all of this.”

And fifth what do we do now?  The best thing we can do to honor the life God has given us is to live it every day as fully as possible. If you have feelings about all of this, that’s okay. It’s normal to feel sad, scared, or angry. It’s fine to have questions. You can always come to me to talk about your questions or how you feel. Keep the people from Sandy Hook in your heart, offer a prayer for them and when you feel a little bit afraid or sad, find someone you trust to hug. We all need each other, and if we always try to put love first, we’ll be sure to honor the gifts God has given us.

If our spiritual tradition teaches us anything, it is that God’s people often find themselves in the midst of unimaginable suffering.  And when that happens, the Lord invites us to act as light in the darkness.  Clear and loving words of faith are essential for our children right now – and that is one thing we must do at this moment in time even as we grieve.  For like St. Paul told us:  we do not grieve as others do.  We are people born of hope – so even our grief must express that hope – especially to our children.

Another thing we must do at this moment in time is challenge the scapegoating that has already started to take place among the various political and religious partisans.  Another mission partner in ministry, our friends down at Gould Farm in Monterey, recently posted this insight and I urge you to listen carefully:  All the focus on the small number of people with mental illness who are violent serves to make us feel safer by displacing and limiting the threat of violence to a small, well-defined group.  But the sad and frightening truth is that the vast majority of homicides are carried out by outwardly normal people in the grip of all too ordinary human aggressions to whom we provide nearly unfettered access to deadly force."Speak up for the truth: People living with a mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetuators.”

What I hear in this is a prophetic critique of the status quo; it points to our obsession with violence and stubborn refusal to acknowledge sin and resonates profoundly with the passion of the Old Testament prophet Micah.  His words from the eighth century before Christ sound all too much like 21^st century America.  Biblical scholar, Melinda Quivik, notes that when you look at Micah’s writings as a whole:  He rails against the social and moral abuse rampant in the land. Those with power have taken away from the poor their land and inheritances (2:1-5), evicted widows from their homes (2:9), fixed the scales and weights to cheat customers (6:10-11), taken bribes (7:3), and more. The language is as graphic (3:1-3) as the butchery of Sweeney Todd, so horribly do the "haves" treat those who have less… And YHWH's wrath is not just against the political rulers and the wealthy, it is also against the prophets and religious authorities whose words serve only themselves: "those who cry 'Peace' when they have something to eat, but declare war against those who put nothing into their mouths" (3:5). There is no hope for them, for "the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be black over them..." (3:6). Micah declares the ruin of the holy city Jerusalem.

When preachers and pundits tell us that the massacre at Sandy Hook has something to do with God’s wrath over taking prayer out of the schools – or that this is the Lord’s angry response to President Obama’s cautious commitment to gun control – we need to be able to challenge them with love and truth.  We cannot return hatred for stupidity, nor encourage character assassination against those with whom we disagree.

We are people of faith, hope and… what?  Love – love that is willing to embrace our enemies.  Love that lays down a life for a friend.  Love that goes the extra mile and seeks out grace rather than judgment every time – even unto the Cross.  Do you remember St. Paul’s description of Christian love in I Corinthians 13?  Eugene Peterson’s reworking of the ancient text is crucial for us right now:

Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, isn’t always “me first,” doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grove, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end. Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete… Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, and love extravagantly knowing that the best of the three is love.

In love we can confess that it is own our addiction to violence, the stagnation of our own collective moral imaginations and the sad fact that we have allowed our own politicians to sell their souls to the NRA that is at the core of this tragedy – not God’s wrath – and not some political scapegoat.  In love let us speak truth to power – and here is part of the truth we must own as our own.  

Gradually and without much fanfare, we have become a nation that refuses to distinguish between guns that are needed for hunting – and perhaps self-defense – and the kind of weapons that only the armed forces and police used to own:

·    Fact: in the four counties surrounding Sandy Hook, CT there are more than 400 gun dealers.  As Jim Wallis of the Sojourners Community notes, in America today there are more gun dealers than McDonald’s restaurants.

·    Fact: on Black Friday alone – the day after Thanksgiving – the FBI received more than 150,000 requests for background checks for firearm purchases; they received more than 2 million in the month of November. And most astoundingly, there are 311 million people in America and now an estimated 280 million guns.

·    Fact:  there are more and more guns in our society, they are being allowed in more and more public places, and they are more and more legal to be concealed. That is the direction that the gun business and gun lobby has taken us — because today the gun business and the gun lobby are now the same thing.

In love we have been called to confess our own complicity in this mess; for only then we can stand firm against any exaggeration in this time of grief.  Then we can challenge fear with hope and ask patience when quick – and all too often stupid – solutions are offered up.  Then we can even be some of the light in this time of darkness.

And our model for this, beloved is Mary, the mother of our Lord.  That’s one of the deep blessings of this season – and a time-tested tradition of spiritual wisdom – we can see how others have not only endured their suffering and confusion by faith and love, but how they have been led into new birth and deeper integrity, too so that they bring blessings to a frightened world.  You see more often than not what our tradition offers the world in the face of tragedy and suffering cuts deeper theology and clear, rational words of explanation.  No, what people of faith share best when hard times come is love – acts of love – deeds of real flesh and blood compassion without judgment.

In our story, when a young, Palestinian peasant girl’s life is turned upside down, by prayer and trust she chooses to embrace God’s mystery rather than question or oppose it.  But she knows she needs help so the story tells us that immediately Mary heads for Elizabeth’s house to get some comfort, wisdom and company.  Mary knows – and the older Elizabeth comprehends, too – that when the going gets rough we need one another.  We can’t make sense nor bring healing to tragedy all by ourselves.  And there are two fascinating details in this story deserve remembrance:

First, as soon as young Mary calls out her greeting to the older and wiser relative, Elizabeth, who is also pregnant with the yet unborn John the Baptist, what happens?  The little baby Baptizer starts leaping around for joy in his momma’s womb.  He dances in anticipation inside her body and Elizabeth breaks into a song of praise:  Holy Mary, Mother of God, blessed are you and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.  In solidarity and faith, blessings beyond our wildest expectations are received and shared.

And second, as she rests more deeply into the comfort and compassion of Elizabeth, Mary finds a new peace that allows her to go forward.  She begins to see something of God’s upside-down grace at work in her life – in her own womb – and her world.  She doesn’t understand it all – and she won’t until Jesus speaks to her at the foot of his Cross – but she senses that somehow God has entered this moment in love and will lead her through whatever she must face.  And let’s not forget that Mary also gives herself enough time to talk things through, too because the story end by telling us that she stayed on with Elizabeth for three months before returning to her home.  No rushing to judgment or jumping on band wagons allowed just to feel better or some-how productive.

 

Conclusion

Now if Mary is a sacred model of embodiment for us – an Advent apostle of trusting God’s grace and love even in the midst of tragedy, suffering and confusion (and I think she is) – then maybe as the new year unfolds we might follow her example. 

·    What would it look like if we brought together parents and educators in this congregation and others to begin a dialogue about how to keep our children safe?  We could eat together – that’s Biblical – we could tell one another our hopes and fears – like Mary and Elizabeth – and we could trust that in solidarity and faith God’s love would become flesh within and among us. 

·    What would it be like if by faith rather than fear God’s people let the Holy Spirit invite us into actions to shed light into the darkness as an alternative to our fear?  Do you think the body of Christ – and others, too – might discover new ways of spreading peace and grace and hope beyond this season of grieving?

“My soul magnifies the Lord,” Mary said – that is my entire being celebrates and honors the grace of God – and in this “my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for God has looked with favor upon the lowliness of his servant.”  There is a time for grieving – and for silence – a time for singing and a time for healing in peace.  Let those who have ears to hear, hear.

 

The arc of this advent...

The arc of this Advent - like most of this past year - has been totally unexpected.  I had hoped for a time of quiet introspection bathed in poetry and music.  Instead, my time has been filled with grief and anguish and more busyness than I can comprehend.  Obviously this is what I've needed a la Meister Eckhart's adage that reality is the will of God (it can always be better but you must start with what is real.)

That is what the contemplatives teach at their best:  contemplation involves taking a long, loving look at what is real.  And when I do that I see more and more suffering.  In this, the massacre in Sandy Hook is a terrifying and tragic mirror reflecting back to us the sickness of our self-absorbed and violence-addicted culture.  I am not one who hates America - I am a patriot - but I hate what America has become and is becoming.  Is the best solution to violence giving school administrators more weapons?  Are we to live like Mad Max in a constant fortress that barely holds back the tide of destruction beyond our barriers?  Are we to go back to an eye for an eye rather than forward into a love that includes even our enemies?

Nothing is automatic - we can become the change we ache for - if we are ready to repent and let an open heart be our guide.

Deeper thoughts on sandy hook...

Earlier this week, my daughters posted this picture of themselves on Facebook from back in our Seminary days.  They were young and tender, loving and safe, beautiful and so alive. I LOVE this picture.  I LOVE my girls and would move heaven and earth to keep them safe.  Look at them - so precious and filled with love - so alive and filled with potential. 

I visited with one of my daughters tonight at her farm not far from our home.  I wanted to exchange Christmas gifts before she and her beloved head out to San Francisco for the holidays. It was a short visit because the roads were becoming icy tonight, but I did not want to miss the chance to see her and embrace her before she travels.  She has been sick recently and I felt like I would break if we did not have the chance to connect before her departure. In a week her sister and husband will travel here for Christmas Eve worship - and my heart won't be still until I can hold her, too.

You see, my life has been so full and real because of these girls - now women - and all we have shared.  I helped deliver them both into this world back in our hippie days. We've been through a lot - blessings and curses - and I am grateful that through it all we continue to finds ways of sharing love. They are both involved in public education in Brooklyn and Massachusetts - on behalf of the least of these our sisters and brothers (Matthew 25) - and they serve those in their care with wisdom and grace. They are creative, compassionate and committed young women and I cannot imagine life without their presence.  Perhaps that is why I continue to weep over the shootings in Sandy Hook...

It was impossible not to weep as we gathered with the children of my congregation this morning around the Christmas creche.  Most are too young to know what has happened although they know something is in the air.  Most are as young and innocent as my daughters in this picture.  A few of the older children cried with me as we retold the story of the shepherds' coming from the hills to honor and protect the Christ child. And when we prayed together for the safety of all our children, I could hear their parents - and those in the congregation - letting their own tears flow freely within the safety of our community and God's embrace. 

It was a tough but beautiful morning because it seems that today was a time for grieving. I just watched the President speak in Newtown, CT and he got it right: this moment one for tears and silence, the assurance of God's presence and the solidarity of those who embrace in agony.  But we cannot grieve as those who have no faith nor can we can we grieve only; for on his short watch President Obama has already been called upon to address women, men and children in four different US communities who have been attacked by those with easy access to automatic weapons. How did we come to accept the intolerable? When did insanity become the norm?]

Today's second Biblical reading - the Second Canticle of Isaiah - ripped me up with the clear promise of consolation amidst the suffering:

Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

As I was watching various news broadcasts this weekend I was stunned to hear one analyst suggest that maybe the time has come to start arming our school administrators. As one young father said to me after worship, "I kept watching our children with you today and I wondered how I could protect some of them should a shooter rush in from the street." Lord, have mercy.

It would seem that every generation must wait like Israel in captivity and fear for God's release. This Advent our waiting has become agonizing.  I pray that our tears and fears rise up beyond this moment, however, to become a force for healing a sick and broken land. 
 

All over the map...

I had hoped that my words this morning might be helpful...  and maybe they were but mostly they seemed all over the map to me as I owned grief, anger, lament, trust within an abiding sense that God's own heart breaks over and over again when the beloved sin. 

Like St. Paul said in Romans 1, like a loving parent who has taught and trained their children, sometimes the Lord let's us experience the consequences of our sin - and that's what this bitter moment feels like.  It is as if God is saying:  "You want to ignore my call to love? You want to train your children in violence instead of compassion? You want to turn weapons into toys?  And demonize your enemies rather than search for common ground? You want to nurture a self-centered consumerist culture and then wonder why nobody has spiritually mature values?  Ok... do it and see how you like the consequences.  Then maybe, just maybe, your grief will awaken you to my holy alternative."

This morning the old apostle also asked us to learn how to rejoice - always - and in all ways.  But this was not a Sunday where being shaped by joy could take root.  We are all too raw...  and so the waiting continues.

The sound of Rachel weeping...

Dianne and I were on a short respite in Boston when the horrible news from Newtown, CT assaulted us all:  20 children and 6 adults slaughtered.  My brother and sister went with me to Sandy Hook Elementary School for a few years back in the early 60s. I got my first Bible from the Newtown Congregational Church.  And 6 years ago interviewed for the office of pastor in that small town. 

Like every other person with a heart, mine aches tonight.  Sadly, however,I am not surprised that this has happened yet again: we live in a culture of violence, fear and shame - we eat our own and then act shocked when they sometimes take the guns we've given them as toys and kill our babies and loved ones.  We live in a sick and selfish culture...
\
One of my colleagues put it into prayer form so tonight I'm sitting with her words and this tune from the Boss.

God now all my carols are quiet
And there is only the sound of Rachel’s tears.

I pray for these children
for whom there are already
gifts hidden they will not unwrap
who will never grow so old
that they can’t hear the Polar Express bell.

For their parents and friends
sisters and brothers
whose lives changed forever
for the adults who died
and those who loved them

For teachers everywhere
who are ashamed to say how afraid they are now
for the boy in his illness
we gave guns like they were toys

 

For all who are unChristmased

We refuse to be consoled, O Lord
because they are no more

Warn us in our dreams and wakings
to gather all holy children
and find for them a place of safety.Warn us in our dreams and wakings
to gather all holy children
and find for them a place of safety.

A time to be shaped by joy...

The writer, M. Craig Barnes, has observed: "As poets, pastors aren't afforded the luxury of skimming over the top of their own losses, thinking, 'that was no big deal.' The big deal is learning how to dig through loss to find the hints of hope - not a cheery optimism, but deep, from the bottom-of-the-soul hope.  After years of excavation through their own losses, pastor learn how to find this sacred subtext in others... When the sheep of our flock are in the midst of their frightening losses, they need to lean up our faith and our trust that they are not abandoned to this destruction. They need to believe that at least we believe." (Pastor as Minor Poet)

That's my experience, too - they need to believe that at least we believe - is a place I bump up against over and again.  When we're talking about budgets in the light of staggering building repairs, when we're talking about engaging mean-spirited and even cruel critics within the congregation, when we're facing unimaginable physical pain or numbing psychic loss and more:  people in our churches need to believe that at least we believe.  Not merely play acting or putting on a happy face that denies reality; but living and speaking and acting in ways the points to God's presence beyond the obvious.

Fr. Richard Rohr speaks of this as a commitment to joy.

I have committed myself to JOY.  I have come to realize that those who make space for JOY, those who prefer nothing to JOY, those who desire the utter reality of JOY, will most assuredly have it.  We must not be afraid to announce it to refugees, slum dwellers, saddened prisoners, angry prophets:  now and then we must even announce it to ourselves. For in the prison of now - in this cynical and sophisticated are - someone must believe in JOY.

Someone must let their heart, soul and mind be shaped by joy - someone in the faith community must trust that despite the evidence the Christ Child is being born in the most unlikely place within and among us - someone must speak of how both Good Friday and Easter Sunday are connected and real beyond all rationality.  And one of those people had better be the pastor who knows that you can't give what you don't have.  When grief comes to a community, when people live out their deepest demons in ugly, public ways, when trust in our fear is greater than our experience of God's grace, the pastor better be able to speak from deep within about being embraced by God's abiding presence.  In the later days of my ministry I have found that means I must be shaped and reshaped by joy lest the cynicism of this age overwhelm me, too.

We leave this morning for a few days away from church - one of our periodic retreats - to reconnect with one another as well as Christ's joy.  More to come on the flip-side...

God damn: I love rock and roll...

"God damn right it is a beatiful day!" prayed Mr. E - and as I've been checkin' out the 12-12 Benefit for Sandy I have to say I agree.  I love it all:  the Stones, Chris Martin, Springsteen, Kanye West.. even old Billy Joel!

Right now I'm diggin' Michael Stipes and Chris Martin and can't freakin' believe Paul McCartney is gonna do some tunes with the remnants of Nirvana... god damn right it's a beautiful day.

Rolling jubilee...

Every day during Advent, many of those in our community of faith have committed to taking one minute of silence (with their loved ones when possible) to simply rest in the presence of God's love.  As I've noted before, for those with overly busy lives, this is a real challenge - 60 seconds feels like an eternity when you are overbooked and stressed - but also a gentle way to unplug from the madness that surrounds us. Most nights, Di and I find ourselves resting in bed, holding one another's hand quietly for a minute as a gentle close to the day.

About two weeks ago I came across another gentle blessing - this time from our friends in the Occupy movement - who are putting into practice the radical liberation Jubilee principles that not only inspired Jesus but have guided Jewish social justice ethics for thousands of years: forgiving another's debts. A headline in American Blogger cuts to the chase: Occupy Wall Street offshoot to buy-back consumer debt and then forgive it. (check it out @ http://americablog.com/2012/11/occupy-wall-street-offshoot-launches-debt-jubilee.html)

Occupy Wall Street has bred a number of offshoots that are specifically focused on providing mutual aid to members of the 99% who are in crisis. I’ve been involved with Occupy Our Homes for over a year – it’s a housing justice campaign aimed to keep people in their homes and stopping bank theft of houses. More recently, Occupy Sandy has provided crucial aid to affected areas following Hurricane Sandy. And now, Strike Debt has launched a Rolling Jubilee, a campaign meant to leverage the cheapness of debt to reduce it for others.

On the Rolling Jubilee website (http://rollingjubilee.org/) they describe the campaign like this:

Jubilee comes from many faith traditions including Judaism, Christianity and Islam. A jubilee is an event in which all debts are cancelled and all those in bondage are set free. It worked in Biblical times and it can still work today. For example, a kind of jubilee happened in Iceland after the 2008 economic crisis: instead of bailing out their banks, Iceland canceled a percentage of mortgage debt. What these examples show is that debts are just a promise which can - and should - be renegotiated or cancelled when the circumstances warrant. Strike Debt believes that now is the time for a jubilee for the 99%.

So for every dollar contributed another $20 of debt is forgiven - not deferred or purchased by a credit agency - but forgiven as in the Lord's Prayer:  forgive us our debts/ sins/ tresspasses as we forgive another's.  Freakin' brilliant, yes?  This is not only personally transformative - like our 60 seconds of silence - but socially redemptive.  I am so down with this... 
 

Give more of yourself to joy: advent three...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for this coming Sunday, December 16, 2012 - the Third Sunday of Advent.

Introduction
Sometimes preachers can be a pain in the butt, don’t you think?  I suspect the same could be said for any of us who are teachers or leaders of one type or another including parents and politicians, professors and pundits.  Anyone who has to encourage, lead by example and inspire others into action can sometimes over do it, right? 

·       We can be too preachy or too smarmy – too caustic or too sentimental – we can try too hard to make a point and wind up causing people to shut us down.

·       I think that’s how many people hear the two preachers we’ve been asked to consider today on the third Sunday of Advent.  When St. Paul commands us to “rejoice in the Lord always” whether we feel like it or not, and, St. John the Baptist challenges us to get on the stick with more vigorous sharing, caring and preparing for a life in Christ, it can seem like overkill just two weeks before Christmas.

I mean, really, don’t these guys take a break?  Don’t they understand what we’re up against at this time of year?  For the love of Jesus, they are relentless:  Rejoice in the Lord – always!?!  (Are you kidding me?) And share your extra coat with some homeless guy – and maybe some food, too?  (Look I’m having a hard enough time making my church pledge without taking on the Baptizer’s burden, too so come on, Lord, knock it off!)

·       I don’t know if you ever react that way to the words of Scripture, but sometimes these biblical admonitions don’t sound like good news to me at all:  they sound like unrealistic and demanding encumbrances.  I mean rejoice in the Lord – always – have you seen the way some people drive?

·       And here’s the double-whammy:  when I start to realize just how frustrated and demoralized I get over my stubborn resistance to sharing Christ’s joy and compassion, then I start to feel guilty on top of my resentment.  “O Lord, I’ve been trying to serve you faithfully for over 40 years but most of the time I’m still a cranky and selfish sinner.”

And here’s the fascinating thing about the confluence of my resentments and guilt: when they come together about this time in Advent – and they almost always do come together about this time of year – God doesn’t take them away or intervene in any spectacular way.  I sometimes wish She would, but God doesn’t work that way; no, time and again it seems that God wants me to sit and stew for awhile in my own self-centered juices –  listening all the while to the words of the preacher – rejoice in the Lord always. 

And when I do this – when I take the time to go deep into both my resentments and guilt – two things have always happened:

·       First, I eventually grow sick and tired of my pity party – there’s nothing nourishing or sacred about my carping – so it burns out pretty fast.

·       And, second, I start to realize that while God continually offers me the gift of joy, I have to make room for it – if there’s no room in the inn of my heart for Christ’s blessings – then the Spirit of Jesus is going to be born someplace else and I’ll be the poorer for it.

One of my favorite preachers, Fr. Richard Rohr, puts it like this:  I have come to realize that only those who make space for joy – those who prefer nothing to joy – those who desire the utter reality of God’s joy will most assuredly have it… in the prison of now, in this cynical and sophisticated age, someone must believe in joy… and commitment themselves to it fully.

 

And that’s what this third Sunday in Advent is all about:  realizing what gets in our way to fully committing ourselves to the joy of the Lord?  So let’s think carefully about a few insights from the Bible and then note some ways that we might open the inn of our hearts that the joy of Christ Jesus might be born within and among us in new and healing ways.  In preparation, let’s pray to the Lord: 
 
Blessed are you, Lord our God, healer of creation and source of true joy, who comes to us in this season in small and challenging ways.  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be open to your Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Insights
One of the reasons our tradition asks us to listen to these preachers again – and again and again and again during Advent – is that our joy, Christian joy, cuts beyond the obvious.  It takes practice and doesn’t arrive all at once; like a child, it takes patience and nourishment during gestation and then nearly a life time of care to bring to maturity. All around us in popular culture, the baby Jesus is already in the manger – the airwaves are saturated with holiday songs – and decorations and shopping are in overdrive mode.  But Sunday worship is still in a minor key – and we’re still wrestling with that wild-eyed preacher calling us to repentance out in the wilder-ness. 

·       So maybe we could put it like this:  a part of us – body and soul – wants to rush quickly towards the “tidings of comfort and joy.”  We would like to get to those stories – the happy and gentle endings – so we can steep ourselves in hot chocolate and Christmas carols.  Not only do they “reassure and comfort us,” but they feel good and are a ton of fun – and some of us are aching for a rest.

·       But another part of us – what I’m going to call God’s grace deep within – quietly urges us to listen first not just to the tidings of comfort and joy, but also to that “rough-voiced, almost reckless, prophet who wouldn't last five minutes in most of our church pulpits.  (Because) that is Advent. Right alongside the "merry" of the season that calls us to shop and decorate, cook and celebrate, we encouraged to nourish this other kind of preparation for the coming of the Christ Child” that takes so discipline and practice.  (Kate Huey, ucc.org)

As Gertrud Mueller-Nelson likes to say:  nothing of value and health happens quickly – not good bread, not good beer or wine – not a healthy baby or a loving relationship.  They must all simmer and bake, set and be formed over time.   And when we rush things, there are problems. I remember one Christmas when I was about 8 years old – it was the first time I remember ever having eggnog – and I loved it.  It was so rich and sweet and thick and creamy:  Lord, I was certain that it was God’s most perfect food.  So, like any other 8 year old boy, I gulped it all down as fast as I could and asked for seconds. 

 

My mother was apprehensive, but I was her first-born after all, so she gave me a second cup – and I polished that bad boy off as fast as I could and still wanted more.  “Take a little break and rest for a minute, Jimmy” she told me, but I was having none of it.  I knew what I liked so when my little sister, Linda, and brother, Philip, weren’t looking I downed the remains of their eggnog, too.  Four cups of eggnog in under 10 minutes…  Well, you know what’s coming, right?  I won’t go into the gory details, but let’s just say that after heading to bed I was one sick little puppy all night long because I had taken in way too much goodness, way too fast.

·       Advent offers a slow and thoughtful way into Christmas and the awareness that God is with us in all things through Christ.  It trains us not to over-indulge, but to look beyond the obvious sweetness towards something more deeply satisfying.

·     Joy, you see, is deeper than a feeling of happiness.  And while there is nothing wrong with happiness, joy is more profound and lasts longer.  For joy is the deep-down awareness of what it means to live well, to live productively and to live righteously (that is for justice and compassion.) (Joan Chittister)

That is what both Paul and the Baptist are speaking about:  living well, living productively and living as a part of God’s compassion and justice.  That is what it means to be joyful – to live well in the midst of all of life’s pain, to live productively within a maelstrom of wastefulness and to live in tender, right relations with one another – did you know that?  Most of us don’t because we’re like Jimmy and the eggnog – we want what we want whenever we want it – even if it makes us sick.

So let me share with you the three ingredients that are necessary for joyful living if we’re paying attention to –   and practicing –  the wisdom of Advent, ok? (And let me say from the start that I am indebted to Sr. Joan Chittister and Frederick Buechner for these insights.)  First, the joy of the Lord in our flesh has to do with living well:  living into the fullness of who God created us to be – not so much having a ton of money and nice things – but being fully alive in healthy ways.  Buechner put it like this:  living well is neither the “hair shirt nor the soft berth… but rather finding that place where your deepest gladness meets the world’s deepest hunger.”

·       Are you with me here?  Is that clear?  We’re talking about  your deepest gladness – not mine – not your parent’s – not even the church’s – yours:  that truth in your being that evokes satisfaction and life, hope and integrity at the most intimate level.

·       Bring that into concert with one of the world’s countless wounds - not all of the wounds or every hunger – just the one – and that’s where joy is found:  where the world’s deepest hunger meets your deepest gladness.

 

We might say that living well in God’s joy has to do with loving self and loving our neighbors; that’s one ingredient.  Another has to do with simplicity:  what do all the public speaking coaches advise when giving a speech?  KISS – keep it simple… sweetie, right?!? 

·       Sharing yourself in the world isn’t supposed to be complicated – it must work at the level of every person – so Jesus speaks of offering a cup of water to a thirsty soul:  or visiting a friend who is lonely – or sharing a tender song in a moment of happiness or sorrow – or a card – or a donation to dig a well in a dry community – or a vaccination in a disease infested village.

·         We’ve been encouraging you to consider buying an animal through Heifer International this Advent, right?   That’s simple – and generous – and brings great healing and hope to the life of another in need.

 

So, first joy is nourished by self-giving, second by simplicity and third by being other rather than self centered.  When I am honest, all my fears and carping are self-centered, not other centered.  What’s more, they ignore completely the fact that while I may be frustrated, resentful and guilty, God isn’t.  God is urging me and encouraging me to open the inn of my heart – quit being so self-centered, man – for only then can I rejoice in the Lord.

Conclusion
When the crowds gathered around John the Baptist, they were bewildered:  they knew they needed help, they knew they were missing joy and had no clue where to turn.  So he told them to get ready for God’s grace: “I am baptizing you with water, but there is one to come who is mightier than I. He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn in unquenchable fire.”

For a long time, I used to think that John was talking about those who lived by faith and those who turned their backs on the Lord – but I think it cuts deeper than that.  In fact, I think my old perspective was wrong and all too obvious.  Now my hunch is that the fire is actually a part of Christ’s baptism and spirit.  As one scholar said:

Fire is not the fate of the lost, but the refining of the blessed.  We all have our chaff, our dross, our waste. We all have our winnowing.  Our self-centeredness.  And it is the fire of Christ that will burn it away.   So our complaints and fears and resentments are not a sign for despair; not do they make us unfit for Advent. No, they qualify is as prime candidates for God’s joy.  (Jacob Meyers @ http://www.workingpreacher.org/)

Once upon a time I read that “the only exit from Dante’s Purgatorio was a wall of fire.  And once the pain was burned away by love, the other side was Paradise, sheer joy.”  (Meyers, ibid)  We can rejoice in the Lord – always – and in all ways if we but have ears to hear the good news in our generation.