As I read the psalm this week, I could not get out of my head the sound of old Baptist farmers, specifically when they were singing at the top of their lungs!
To be honest, “old farmers singing” is the clearest memory I have growing up. We really could sing our hearts out on a Sunday morning--the old men rumbling on the bass part of the songs. While I remember other bits of my early years as a kid in church, what is particularly memorable is the congregation at song sticks in my brain. We sang hymns that seemed to shake the rafters:
Praise Him! Praise Him!
Tell of his excellent greatness!
Praise Him! Praise Him ever in joyful song!
As the Psalter draws to a close, the last five psalms (Ps. 146-150) are the so-called “Hallelujah” hymns, serving as a capstone and finishing flourish to the overall collection. They are called the “Hallelujah” psalms due to each one beginning and ending with the Hebrew phrase “Hallelujah”. The word is often rendered in English as the phrase “Praise the Lord!” though it is actually more of a command or a summons “to praise, shout, sing praise” to God (cf. “HALLEUJAH”, NIBD, Vol II, p. 723). From beginning to end, the people are reminded to keep giving God due praise.
If you asked the various Psalm composers, they would say I remember one of the most important parts of worship: the people of God singing together. Of course, psalmists are quite biased, as the book of Psalms are a collection of songs, a veritable wealth of riches for the liturgical life of a people: calls to praise, calls to prayer, songs of sorrow and joy, songs of a people’s life with God (and often their failings to live into the fullness of this relationship). The psalms serve as a communal summons to sing together at worship, on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and throughout one’s life.
So we find that the old Baptist farmers were doing something more than singing a song boisterously (and hopefully not too off key!). The little group in a small town church engaged in the work of becoming the people of God at worship and using a venerable ancient spiritual practice to do so. While we Baptists talked about the importance of the sermon in our worship service, the music made an even greater impression, forming and fashioning us into a people engaged in the praise to God.
This particular psalm calls the people to give due praise to God as expected: at the beginning and at the end. In turn, the 147th Psalm reads a bit like many hymns in our hymnal. The psalm has three sections, similar to the verses of a longer hymn. Each section builds upon the one previous, escalating a drama of sorts for those singing this psalm.
The first section opens with the call to praise God and reminds the worshipper of God’s worthiness of due praise. Here, we get a glimpse of “when” the psalm was written, as reference is made to Jerusalem in need of reconstruction and persons in crisis. For centuries, it was customary for interpreters to lump all of the psalms into the time of King David, the psalms of the royal court at its height. As scholarship has matured in its reading of the Psalms, the consensus has shifted towards an understanding of the psalms as a collection coming together long after David’s monarchy came crashing down.
Some psalms came in happier times in the life of ancient Israel while others came long after “the party was over” for life as the earlier generations composing certain psalms. I cite the history lesson as it gives better perspective on why this psalm’s call to praise God has such power. The psalmist is encouraging those who are engaged in the hard work of rebuilding a life in the ruins of Jerusalem. It tells us who we are as God’s beloved, especially when times of adversity threaten to overwhelm and overshadow. The psalm calls out a word of hope to the outcast, the broken-hearted, the wounded, the downtrodden and those victimized by the wicked. The 147th Psalm summons to praise a group of people just finding their voice again, sorting out what life looks like after great hardship or catastrophe.
Out of such hope from generation to generation, the melodies rise up in the voices of people regaining their very identity. The psalms ground such hope not in the politics or economics ruling the day. They place such hope in the hands of God, maker of heaven and earth, the one who binds up the wounded and cares for the vulnerable. No wonder as the reminders of whom God is roll along, the psalm then says, “Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving.” It is a statement of gratitude. It is a word of encouragement to those whose voices seem lost in the midst of the world’s noise and indifference.
Over the narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures, we learn of God’s willingness to restore and rebuild the broken down, often wandering people. The world may seem ready to fall apart. The present may seem bleak, yet the psalmist calls people to the praise of God.
This hopeful word of the psalmist echoes in our own historical treasury of songs. From the early 20th century onwards, the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” takes the poetry of James Weldon Johnson and lifts up the travails and the determination of a people whose history is intertwined by tragedy and hope. As I read the psalm, I recalled these lyrics, sung many a time at a MLK Day service over the years:
Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on ‘till victory is won.
As the psalm raises its singers above the world as we tend to experience it, the song turns us beyond the human experience of existence. The psalm celebrates God’s handiwork in the fullness of Creation, bringing the world to life and celebrating its God-given liveliness. The verdant green of the hills, the white caps upon the mountains and the mighty torrent of the waters are all celebrated as God at work in the midst of Creation. We are gifted with a world that God endeavors to make it a place of abundance and good.
Thus we turn to the grand delight of the Hebrew Scriptures, texts that remind us that humanity is part of a greater whole. While we fritter away at our own problems, Creation is understood as a much bigger picture than humanity’s sometimes “human-centric” self-understanding. All of Creation is given to the praise of God, not just us. The psalms that begin and end with a summons to give praise to God do not presume to leave such work to the worshippers inside the temple. It’s a wider chorus given over to the awe of God.
And now we turn to another hymn, one likely unfamiliar, yet as we get into its words and tune, we hear the same intentions behind the 147th Psalm. The hymn writer frames his words in the form of questions, perhaps ones that should be simply asked and pondered rather than hastily answered. How does any part of Creation ever sufficiently give praise to God, humans included?
In singing to the God who created the tiny sparrow and the great whale, the congregation at song raises up the beauty of God’s creation yet admits that such wonder in the world can be scarcely summed up. It is a hymn that calls us to praise while taking down our human pretentions to “know it all”. When the world seems crashing down, the song of praise to God goes on, just as God’s goodness and love for the world is celebrated as the true “last word” on all things.
God of the sparrow God of the whale
God of the swirling stars
How does the creature say Awe
How does the creature say Praise
God of the earthquake God of the storm
God of the trumpet blast
How does the creature cry Woe
How does the creature cry Save
God of the rainbow God of the cross
God of the empty grave
How does the creature say Grace
How does the creature say Thanks
God of the ages God near at hand
God of the loving heart
How do your children say Joy
How do your children say Home
]]>Until….
The brash newcomer arrives and seats himself in the posture of teacher. What he says is quite believable, well received. Nonetheless, folks look at each other in amazement. How could someone unknown and so untested be so wise?
No sooner has the crowd’s murmuring spread that something else extraordinary happens.
A person in the crowd begins to shout. The people look nervously at one another. The odd behavior and the erratic words, the glint in the eye, surely this person has an unclean spirit!
Now at this point, you and I hit the “pause” button and consider the scene. We have a few options for reading this story. Surrounding us is the knowledge base we bring as twenty-first century readers. How do we read this story? Is this a story best read with a grain of salt, knowing that the world of the first-century Christian writer reflected a belief in demons that makes western modern Christians wince a bit? Or, do we page Dr. Freud to come and help us understand the story through the lens of modern understandings of psychology and mental health? (Ah yes, Mark, just recline on the couch here, and tell me about your oral tradition….)
At first, the story could be classified as an exorcism, a casting out of the demonic. Some might even declare it part of the miracle stories of Jesus, a great show of his power. As for Mark’s gospel, neither exorcism nor miracle would fit the best descriptor. Mark is more interested in telling a story about Jesus and authority.
Certainly, the spectacle of this scene misdirects our attention: a person starts acting out, screaming and shouting. Then after a brief exchange between the person and Jesus, the person falls over, released from what Mark terms “an unclean spirit” within him. Make no mistake: While a person with an unclean spirit causes a ruckus, the real rumble about to take place revolves around religious authority.
The gospels revolve around those who would praise Jesus and those who would gladly discredit him. Look back at the scene in Mark’s gospel: the crowd is astonished that Jesus has presumed to enter into a place of worship and teach. Jesus was just gaining public attention. Indeed, after this incident with the unclean spirit, Jesus is said to grow in his standing among the local people.
Indeed, this type of scene repeats throughout Mark’s gospel: people hear Jesus, some sort of challenge to his honor and authority is levied, and Jesus’ response not only is honorable, he becomes that much more respected as a teacher and healer. In the words of the late German feminist theologian Dorthee Soelle:
“With a host of friends (women as well) going through Galilee’s villages and towns
he healed the sick and told stories of the eternal God suffering in the world”. (cf. Jesus of Nazareth, W/JKP)
Even as the crowds murmur their guarded praise and Jesus’ newly called first followers watch on with curiosity, the unclean spirit realizes the fullness of Jesus’ authority. The spirit names Jesus as “the Holy One of God”. While the spirit is trying its best to get out of what is certain doom for itself, the spirit is also quick to acknowledge true power.
In the first chapter of Mark alone, we get narrative after narrative of those who affirm the authority of Jesus. The unclean spirit is actually right in step with John the Baptist, who proclaims Jesus as the one long awaited in the hope of Israel. The unclean spirit is in tune with Mark’s ebullient opening words, proclaiming this gospel as the good news of “Jesus Christ (or “the Messiah”), the Son of God”. The unholy even agrees with God, whose voice is heard rumbling approval at the baptism of Jesus as the beloved one. Toss in a few disciples who drop everything, sight unseen, and you get where Mark is leading his reader even before we get to the second chapter. Here is Jesus, one with authority.
Again, we hit “pause” to ponder that word “authority”. Authority is a hard sell today. Studies show public trust is eroding, and not just in the areas of public life that you might expect. Such surveys show decreasing trust in religion and especially religious leaders (i.e. “clergy”). A story about trust, let alone trust in God, gives today’s average American pause, wondering if trust is just a passing fancy on the way to the eventual questions and doubt too easily earned by institutions and authority figures once thought above reproach.
Mark’s gospel builds its story of Jesus, who emerges on the scene an unknown, yet steadily hailed as “the real deal”. This story of authority is in the midst of the world’s doubts and ambiguity around human authority. It unfolds in the midst of a religious gathering in Capernaum. The crowds reflect the sentiment of the day: reserved at first with this outsider who presumes not only entering their worship, he also presumes to teach. They are a people caught up in the midst of life, just trying to get by in a land under the economic thumb of distant Empire. It’s hard to believe much good can be found, let alone the type of authority that shall lead us forward.
Mark contrasts these positives with the lack of response or outright scorn of others in the narrative. Time and again, Mark will introduce characters who arrive at moments of teaching and healings to challenge, scoff at, or outright dismiss Jesus and his ministry. Ironically (and Mark loves irony in his narrative), the scribes, or religious authorities, whom Jesus is hailed as more authoritative than, are said later in Mark’s gospel to be accusing Jesus of being possessed himself. The gospel keeps asking: will you see and believe in Jesus who his followers call Messiah and Son of God?
Curiously, with all this talk of authority, Jesus himself does not want the fuss. He tells the unclean spirit to hush. (The Greek is fairly blunt, the tone more “Shut up!” than the NRSV’s more Protestant restraint of “Be silent”.) The spirit has named him rightly, yet Jesus dismisses him straight away.
Again, Mark likes some irony with his gospel. Crowds will try to hail Jesus king; the disciples will claim boldly and brashly the authority of Jesus and their fidelity to him. The unclean spirit screams at first, then realizing who is front of him, the spirit then shrieks in fear. As for Jesus, he looks at his well-wishers and around his inner circle and tells them, “Shhhh!”
In Mark’s gospel, Jesus is shown to have due claim to authority, yet he declines taking the spotlight or capitalizing on the fame. Surely his reputation grows, yet he is not like those who gain respect or trust then try to spin it into finer things: status, wealth, or power. Jesus lives a different path, not claiming authority as the scribes wanted. Jesus steered clear of the populist impulse within the crowds and even his band of followers, not claiming a crown. Jesus does not need that type of authority. He keeps to his mission, proclaiming the Kingdom/Reign of God at hand.
He stays on message. He stays on mission. He stays true to everything Mark’s gospel is proclaiming. Jesus is the Messiah/Christ, the Son of God.
And the unclean spirit does not fight him. He pleads meekly and then departs.
For a people knowing authority is hard to find and hard to believe, the story offers us the opportunity to open our hearts a bit more and let God in the midst of our lives. When those fears or passions threaten to possess and consume us, we call upon the good name of Jesus, who healed the many and taught those who would receive him gladly. When the world or the powers that be keep us distracted, the stories of Jesus, the one whose power and authority is earned by his humility rather than by his grasping after it, offer their ancient power to kindle our faith and trust.
Whom do you trust in this world? To whom be your glory and honor? Do you hear the story and agree, this is truly the Holy One, who speaks as one with authority?
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Growing up, I traveled with my father around the back roads, making our way to check on various places where we pastured cattle or had crops planted. Going down one dirt road after another, I remember being quite puzzled why one of these roads seemed to veer off in another direction, a strangely sharp turn around a bend. (Note: Given that this was Kansas, a much flatter terrain, I know that a road like this does not sound that much out of the ordinary to Vermonters.) One day as we made our way down that particular road and neared the strange veering off along the road, I asked my father why the road was so oddly designed.
Father pointed out a bramble of trees and brush just beyond the bend. He told me that decades ago the road used to go straight ahead, leading to a homestead about a quarter mile over the horizon. When the land sold, the farm house and the road were abandoned. The road reverted back to weed trees and tall grass, and the county road crew just made due by reshaping the rest of the intersection as best they could. Unless you knew where to look, you’d think that there had never been a road there.
The British Baptist theologian Paul Fiddes tells the story of workers renovating an old residence. Working in the basement, they were quite puzzled by a pit they found downstairs. Was it the place where coal was stored up until needed for heating the family home? They had never quite seen one just like it. After some inquiries, they discovered that the house used to be a small Baptist chapel, which eventually sold the property to a developer decades ago. The chapel had been turned into a duplex, and the “coal pit” turned out to be the one-time congregation’s baptistery!
These two stories remind us that times change. A house was built by an enterprising family in one generation and a couple of generations removed, the years of work creating a homestead out on the Kansas prairie became a curious footnote, nearly forgotten. What looked like a coal pit was really a sacred place, a “home” of sorts for the faithful, where they were to be brought into the fellowship of a congregation and more importantly, to follow Jesus obediently into the baptismal waters.
A congregation could build a chapel (in this sense of the word, a smaller church building), and years later the very focal point of a Baptist worshipping community (its baptistery) had been long disused, its original purpose forgotten as the congregation moved on to build bigger facilities elsewhere or the fellowship simply disbanded at some point in the past.
Today we encounter a road of sorts. The path to baptism and the way of discipleship intersect necessarily where we move from being an interested learner to the decision to follow Jesus as believers. Each Christian has to follow this pathway (though curiously the road may seem longer or shorter, steeper or smoother, depending on the faith journey made by an individual). Nonetheless, along that way, as a person moves toward baptism and the life of discipleship, the Church has the task of road upkeep. Without a community of believers encouraging and supporting newcomers to the faith, the pathways might be forgotten, leaving very little clue about how to find one’s way along the path of Christian discipleship.
This past year, we only had one baptism. Christopher Redding came to First Baptist, thanks in part to the encouragement of his grandmother and parents and the time we spent together talking about the faith. I again apologize for the “cold mountain stream water” he encountered the day he was baptized, yet nonetheless, he became a follower of Jesus through his exploration of faith, his study of Christian scriptures and readings, and his willingness to search, ask questions and ponder the beliefs of Christianity in his heart. The membership numbers may not have leapt upwards by the dozen in 2011, yet I believe we helped Christopher begin a lifelong journey. Some of this journey ahead is by his continuing choice to do so. Nonetheless, this congregation and others in his future have the task of being places where pilgrims on the journey can find hospitality, support and opportunities to grow.
After all, what else are congregations for?
On PBS this winter, the second series of Downton Abbey will air over the course of several Sunday evenings. Set in the era around the first World War, the story traces the waning years of a country estate where the aristocrats watch their world of privilege being outmoded and the dozens of household and grounds staff get caught up in the changes sweeping society (the suffrage movement, the escalation up to WWI, the growing opportunities for persons to leave the rural villages in pursuit of greater opportunities in the city, etc.).
At the helm of the family and ancestral estate is the Lord of the estate, Sir Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham. He is the last of a line, and through situations beyond his control, he finds his title and the estate’s future in question. A distant cousin, never in consideration as an heir, becomes the inheritor of the estate and title when two relatives die in the sinking of the Titanic. Now trying to make the best of it, Lord Grantham is introducing his cousin Matthew to what will await the younger man when the estate and title are passed over. Walking around the estate grounds, the two men look at the large manor home, a sight that Cousin Matthew is not quite ready to consider “his” someday. Sir Robert observes,
Lord Grantham: You do not love the place yet.
Matthew Crawley: Well, obviously, it’s…
Lord Grantham: No, you don’t love it. You see a million bricks that may crumble, a thousand gutters and pipes that may block and leak, and stone that will crack in the frost.
Matthew Crawley: But you don’t?
Lord Grantham: I see my life’s work.
Sometimes we lose sight in congregations about our basic mission. We build places of worship and then spend more time worrying about upkeep than we do mission. When Downton Abbey first aired a year ago, I quoted Lord Grantham’s line about “a million bricks that may crumble, a thousand gutters and pipes, stone cracking in the frost” at the Trustee meetings as it spoke to one of the tensions we deal with having such a large building. Yet I also quoted the other of Lord Grantham’s lines regarding the property: “I see my life’s work.”
Here in this place, we have a mission that is delightfully diversified. In part, we have the missional church work of providing space to community programs and various non-profit activities that help people meet their basic human needs. This work has helped us generate revenue to tackle present and deferred upkeep needs, while also raising our value in the community as a place where people can find help. Indeed, this coming Thursday, Wayne and I will be guest lecturers for a Doctor of Ministry class in Kansas City, speaking to a group of pastors learning new skills to deal with this strange world we are now living in, where people have decreasing interest in “religion”, numbers have declined across the denominations, and what little “margin” is left in many congregations is not able to keep up with the demands of increasing bills and a tough economy. First Baptist is part of the solution to the problem, as we have put together over the past three-plus years a new way of keeping a “large building and a smaller congregation” as a recipe for good things yet to come rather than “it’s only a matter of time”.
Of course, now that we have gotten some of the “big picture” issues resolved (missional purpose chief among them), what does it mean to be also “in love” with this place? For congregations, “place” or “home” is more than just a collection of bricks, pipe, and stone. We are more than the sum of property. To understand “church”, you have to talk about people who believe in Jesus and find ways to encourage one another in the life of faith through the corporate/communal practices of a congregation. Our love of place grows out of singing and praying together, serving one another and the neighbor in need alike, reading and discerning God’s word for us today, and especially for Baptists, knowing how to throw a good ole potluck. We sometimes bog down in questions of brick and mortar, yet we are learning not to be defined by them.
In the upcoming bylaws proposed for your consideration and vote, we are looking at strengthening and streamlining the number of boards. Our present bylaws presume nearly two dozen people to serve in ongoing officer or board membership. As we assessed the present day needs of First Baptist, we need leadership to manage financial and property issues, yet we also need a board to oversee what it means to be a member of First Baptist. Discipleship takes on many forms: worship, education, fellowship, care, and service. This proposed board takes primarily the place of the Board of Deacons and the Board of Christian Education, being charged with the task of asking good questions of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and how First Baptist can be a place that helps us individually and communally flourish.
As we look at realigning our boards, we aim to strengthen our ministry and mission, so that we can keep up with our primary reason for being, which is to keep the faith and encourage others, especially those who have not yet heard the good news of Jesus Christ. We can only benefit from spending more time asking questions and exploring what it means to be better disciples, deepening our engagement with becoming a worshipping, learning, caring and serving community of believers. Our past and our present depend on our willingness to keep into the future with this mission, lest the path and the household we have become outmoded, forgotten as time moves on and what we’ve been about for nearly 185 years becomes a fading footnote.
There are many roads we traverse in life. Sometimes, the roads are straight and smooth. Other times, we find ourselves on the twists and turns of difficult terrain. Faith can be just like either type of road, veering off when we least expect or taking us down paths that we don’t know if we can quite make it all the way across. I give thanks constantly that when I’m out on such roads, I can see the well-worn footpaths of other saints (and even a few sinners) that have gone on ahead of me.
Together, we gather each week to worship and grow together in faith. Together, we keep up with this place that is more than the sum of its utility bills and maintenance upkeep. Together, we aim to be the group of disciples who tell and live out this story called “gospel”, so that others may seek and find. Together, we search for the roads that lead us to our true home.
Amen.
]]>When we consider a new way of living, where do we find our strength to change? For Christians, we go to God in times of good and times of bad alike. Out of such love and trust for God, we aim to live our lives by the gospel’s ways. We offer our talents and gifts in ways that reflect a love of God and neighbor. Foremost is our resolve to give praise to God.
Thus, I found it providential that the Sunday readings for January 1 included the 148th Psalm, a great reading for a worship service coinciding with New Year’s Day. In this psalm, we are called to the praise of God, wherever and whoever we may be. No one is to be left out of joining this summons to praise!
Of course, giving praise to God can be a challenge. Hearing the call to praise God can be a bit difficult while weathering the anxieties of a lingering down economy. As we think about the year just completed, we have our own “pro” and “con” list about how 2011 played out. Like it or not, there’s always something about the past year we opt out of writing about in the Christmas letter!
The Psalms may have been written generations ago, yet they keep on speaking to us about what it means to be human. In the Psalms, we encounter the kaleidoscope of human experience: abundant praise and deep lament, words that ring out with happy delight and others that are laden with grief. From generation to generation, we are a people somewhere between delight and misgiving, triumph and tragedy. Psalm 148 reminds us to join in, even when we are weary or hesitant.
The psalmist goes a step further, not satisfied with merely the human in the summons to praise. The psalm calls out to the rest of Creation to join in: the rocks, the trees, the winds, the skies, the oceans, and all creatures great and small. In short, the psalmist calls back to the stage the entirety of Genesis’ Creation story to bring the praise of God to its most fulsome.
From our modern perspective, we might harbor skepticism that a mountain or a hummingbird could be on equal footing with us, especially in singing praise to God. One might read the psalm and chalk its expansive vision up to “poetic license”. Surely humanity is the pinnacle of Creation, so shouldn’t we be the sole choristers?
From a contemporary ecological perspective, the psalm appeals to our growing awareness and ethical responsibility to the world as an interconnected web of life, where we have to consider how our use of the world’s resources needs to be balanced with the reality that resources are finite and curb our habits of overdevelopment and more importantly, over-consumption. The world is not just “backdrop” for humanity to live and give praise to God. The psalmist calls the entirety of Creation to praise for good reason. The praise of God would be diminished without literally all voices, including those humanity tends to neglect or dismiss.
In my church office, I keep a small art piece of St. Francis of Assisi, a saint remembered for his humility, his deep commitment to voluntary poverty and a love of Creation. True to form, Francis is imaged with his arms outstretched as birds descend to rest on his shoulders and arms.
This image of Francis reminds me daily that we are part of a bigger story. We are part of a greater song of praise that even when we humans falter in joining or remembering to join our own voice, the song continues on. Just as the saints sing in heaven above with eternal alleluias, so the earth shall be always singing out.
Praise the Lord. Amen.
]]>I don’t know about you, but we seem spend our day deluged by words. Checking my Facebook account alone keeps me awash in words, some wise, some less so. You can learn just about anything via a quick Google search. Then let’s not forget the conversations around home, work, and even the text messaging on our cellphones. Finally, just to feel a little old school, there’s still that old fashioned experience of getting a letter in the mail. (Yes, that’s right: an actual letter from somebody other than a credit card company that can’t wait to share that you are “pre-approved!”).
At the end of the day, you’ve been around more words than you think, as the words add up from the breakfast time perusal of the newspaper, that report that must be read by noon, the dozen emails that rolled in while you were trying to respond others, the status updates that pop up on FB, and then, last but not least, a chapter or two from the novel you’re reading just before going to sleep.
We get through the day with words swirling around us, dancing across the computer screen and swirling around our ears (provided you can get your ear buds to actually fit in your ears!). Awash in words, we start filtering out the ones that don’t seem that important. Often, we err by ignoring more words than we should, ironically becoming inattentive to the words around us, tuning out most of everything in the name of a rare moment of silence. We even hope we got through a day without hearing words that trouble us (and hopefully avoided saying words that trouble others). Words are plentiful, yet as the old saying goes, talk can be cheap….
In the midst of our world, the gospel of John yearns to be heard, telling his story of Jesus, the Word of God. Bringing John’s gospel out at Christmas time can be a hard sell, as he does not tell a story of Jesus being born with the “Christmas Pageant” of shepherds, kings, and angelic choirs floating above the manger. You read John’s gospel, and you think now here’s a guy who marches to the beat of a different drummer. (And not the one who goes “ra-rumpa-rum-pum”.)
John’s gospel opens with these words set up in the lofty clouds above. It’s not a straightforward story of Jesus being born. Instead, we get this philosophical take on Jesus as “the Word of God”, pre-existing before Creation itself, divinity taking on humanity and not just as if slipping into an acting role. Here, we are told Jesus became one of us, part of the limitations and the frailty, willfully accepting life as it is, including pain, suffering and even death.
When the Word becomes flesh, our English translations falter in saying that the Word “dwelled among us”. The Greek drives the point home much closer: “the Word became flesh and pitched its tent among us”. In other words, the Word digs in his heels in and lives in the midst of life as we know it. This is a Word that is right in the middle of the conversations we have with what it means to be human. John 1 pushes the envelope of the image we have of God as divinity aloof, off up in the clouds.
The faith of Christianity welcomes the hard questions we wrestle with: questions of life, death, and the meaning behind it. Life causes us to ask all manner of questions that make us weep or laugh. Some questions we keep close to the vest, confiding with only our closest of friends. And, quite frankly, we harbor a few questions that keep us up at night, wrestling with them late into the wee hours of the night.
Christianity claims that such questions find their dialogue partner in the form of Jesus, the Word made flesh. The gospel affirms that Jesus is to be found in the midst of those who harbor doubt within, those who grieve, those who hurt, those who are marginalized, and those who feel forgotten. Jesus is with us, each step of the way, because he walked our way through birth, life, and death already. The Word became flesh and lived with the same wonders and woes that we know firsthand.
May the Word be heard and known in your life. AMEN.
]]>As Advent prepares us for Christmas, Mary appears on the stage with two stories of being faithful, even when God surprises us with unexpected news. Sometimes called the Annunciation and the Magnificat (the Song of Mary), these stories tell us of Mary’s faithful “yes” when asked to bear the Christ Child and as she sings a song celebrating God’s work in the world. Retold through countless works of art, artists strive to capture this moving moment of the young woman initially frightened by the angelic messenger yet confidently saying “yes!” to what is being proposed. In turn, the song of Mary has inspired many works of music and literature, celebrating the soaring faith of the gospel just about to unfold. Here, we see Luke the storyteller giving us a glimpse of what happens when people say ‘yes to God’ and follow the way of Jesus.
Such euphoria might be hard to take to heart, with Luke’s nativity seeming too idealistic to be true. In the midst of these songs and prayers of praise, we are also a people journeying through the end of a calendar year, trying to get last minute details done for work or holiday gatherings. The frantic pace of the holidays looms large, and we still find ourselves behind, trying to get the house together, ensuring our kids stay healthy, and most of all, staying somehow ahead as the days ‘til Christmas or New Year’s Eve count down. A prayer more likely said this week is, “Dear Lord, send me some little elves to finish the shopping for me, or at least to clean the house so that I can finish the shopping. And, Lord, if you can throw in sending somebody to work in my place this week at all my jobs, even better. AMEN.”
Somehow each year as we harbor the suspicion (fear?) that the holidays just get more hectic each year, Advent shows up to be the voice of reason among Christian believers, a voice that says, “Slow down”. At worship, there is a weekly invitation awaiting us that somehow through the hymns, prayers and Scriptures, we might find time to recharge our drained energies, rekindle our faith and look beyond the hustle and bustle to get at the heart of faith.
If we let this season enter into our lives, we might find the stress, the ever growing list of “things to do” and even the grief that some carry through this season from loss recent or lingering, Advent might just help us get ourselves refocused for the wonder and awe that the celebration of Christmas is about: welcoming the Christ child and the fullness of what the Christian story holds for us, our households and our world.
I imagine Mary being in the midst of laundry when the angel of the Lord shows up. She has put in a full day’s work and it is only midday. Lunch needs to be sorted out, yet somehow her thoughts about what to fix has evaporated as she sees the angel in her kitchen. In an otherwise ordinary day, Mary finds God’s messenger standing there, trying not to knock over the jars on the table with his wings and Mary too frightened to say anything other than a stammering hello. In the moment of the normal and the “out of left field” colliding together, the angel says what Luke will have said a number of times: “Fear not.”
Mary is asked to bear a child who shall be the Son of God, the one through whom God will bring great good to the world. It is a grand promise, made even more so by the angel delivering it. While some would remain in fright or ask questions, Mary responds with a very confident affirmation. She opens herself to the possibilities of saying ‘yes’ to God, taking a remarkable word to heart and daring to see what happens next. Hence in the Catholic tradition, it is said Mary is the first disciple of Jesus or a model for the type of faith Jesus calls us to keep. Indeed, throughout Luke’s gospel, we will encounter characters galore who dare to do the same. Later in the gospel of Luke, Jesus will say such people like his mother are “those who hear God’s word and do it” (Luke 8:21).
Such faith is not without its challenges. The Baptist New Testament scholar Alan Culpepper reminds us to read the story of Mary with due caution. There is a scandal inherent in Jesus’ origins: conceived by means that defy expectations, born into humble means and no great claim to status. The Son of God appears in the world in a corn crib, not a royal palace. Culpepper suggests Mary raises this child with a completely different take on being “blessed”: a life lived in fidelity to God, not needing the measure of greatness found among those of great means or power. Together with Joseph, Mary raises the child as many mothers around the world raise daughters and sons: with great dedication, determination and sacrifice.
In responding to God, Mary’s “yes” becomes a long-term commitment, one shaping the way her life plays out. She hears God’s word and cannot do anything other. The “yes” to God just keeps going on and on. The laundry kept piling up, meals still had to be prepared, yet in the routine and the hustle and bustle of the world just spinning around from week to week, year to year, Mary, the mother of Jesus, kept her faithful promise.
In saying “yes” to God, we begin finding a story to tell and a song to sing. When God calls us to keep the faith, we can choose to think “it’s all over” or “it won’t happen” when it comes to seeing the world grow closer to God’s goodness rather than the indifferent or drifting world as we tend to experience it. Just as Mary will sing of God’s mighty works, so the faith Jesus taught his disciples to live out has a healthy sense of vision, even when it is out of step with conventional wisdom.
Again, Mary models a type of discipleship to embrace. She sings of what God is doing in the world, even if it is difficult to see the fullness of her song or the teachings of Jesus becoming the “good news” to all persons. Mary sings, and we have the choice of whether or not to listen. Can we embrace her song as one we want to learn to sing and live out? Are we willing to wrestle with this sort of worldview where the ways things are is turned upside down? Are we willing to welcome the gospel into our lives in ways that make Mary’s song resound within us and through us?
This past week, St Mark's Lutheran Church in Kansas City, MO, was profiled by the local NPR affiliate, noting the church’s challenges with a very large building and only thirty-five active members. At one time in the mid-20th century, the church welcomed a thousand people. On one hand, the numbers are up from ten years ago when less than twelve attended, and among their small number, they reflect the diversity of their urban neighborhood far more than before.
In the past few years, the pastor challenged St Mark's to develop its outreach to the community, welcoming in various groups including two other churches who share the facility each week. Ten years ago, the church building was thought more likely to be in the hands of a realtor sooner than later. Now, there are some opportunities to move forward, even if the weekly worship numbers aren’t considered on the par with previous decades.
The congregation’s pastor noted that the community partnerships are revitalizing the congregation. People want to see the church continue, even if they themselves are not religious. The pastor notes church officials hear the story and think the successful partnerships developing within the church are more like a “mythological story” than “reality”. This shared vitality has helped the congregation “have this wonderful picture of what our area of the city is like. All kinds of people sharing the same space and making it sing.”
When I visited this Lutheran church a decade ago, the history of the congregation’s future seemed already written, the ink long dried. The future story read: “there’s not much time left”. At the time, an Alliance of Baptists-affiliated congregation I worked with in seminary was cost-sharing space every Sunday, using the sanctuary while the “dozen or less” Lutherans gathered in what used to be a classroom for their worship. Dust and deferred maintenance projects stretched as far as the eye could see.
Reading the article about the same church building and congregation a decade later, I marveled at what can happen, even when the handwriting seemed to be on the wall. Just as Mary did not know the full extent of what would happen with this child she was to birth and raise up, so this congregation endured through many years of ambiguity and wondering what the future held. Nonetheless, keeping the faith allowed them to reach this day, where not everything is “perfect” yet they have a sense that God is at work in their midst.
And we see this vitality as well in our congregation’s ministry and mission. This past year, we have provided short-term mission projects for persons to learn new skills or to serve others. We are revising our bylaws to allow us to look more at the mission than to ponder the maintenance. In turn, we are partnering with other faith communities to foster a greater “common good” for our local neighbors in need. Take a look at 800 Gage Street, where an old market (and most recently tanning salon) has turned into a food distribution center. Since its April start-up, The Kitchen Cupboard has registered a thousand Bennington area households who have found food for the table thanks to the hard work of people of faith and people with no faith preference, all working together to look out for others in need. If you listen closely in the midst of this interfaith work, we can hear the values shared by the many faiths, including that of the gospel. The world as the Song of Mary imagines it to be in God’s good hands harmonizes beautifully with such work!
As we reach the end of the Advent season and celebrate Christmas into our worship, our households and with our friends, would you share the good word of why Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus? We are a people who keep the faith in a world that seems without much left to believe in. The gospel is “good news” that dares to move beyond our prayers and hymns, sacred Scriptures and even the four walls of our places of worship. We are called to live it through saying “yes” to God, to hear the gospel and seek out ways to bring its values to our world. We may be persons of varying backgrounds, yet we are all called to follow faithfully the story and the way of Jesus Christ, first born of Mary.
]]>Alycia and I met this week to sort out the costumes to ensure everything was ready to go for today’s rehearsals and the program. Some costumes were easy to sort out (angel wings go with angels, fluffy white outfits for sheep and the brown fluffy ones are for camels. Then, the costumes got more complicated. Is this hat for a shepherd or for Joseph? (Anybody who has put together a Nativity set will puzzle this out. When in doubt, the guy who isn’t holding a shepherd’s crook is very likely Joseph. Either that or he’s a Magi that lost his myrrh in the stock market…).
Down the hall, the children are running their lines, learning their parts and hopefully not chasing each other with shepherd’s crooks. This evening will be another chapter in the life of our congregation as the youngest help the oldest recall what the season at hand is all about. We retell the story of the birth of Jesus because we are a people who claim the overall story of Jesus, who lived, died, and rose again. We spend time together in song, prayer, and listening to the Word, seeking out the full meaning of Christmas, a story of a babe born in Bethlehem whose life would be remarkable and indeed, by his life, death and resurrection, give us a story that we take as the framework for our own lives.
Through the story of the gospel, we learn how to live and be drawn closer to God. As a wise pastor (now of beloved memory) was fond of doing, we know there’s a cross in the midst of this story of a manger, not just a story of a birth of a child. This story is part of the Easter faith. When we dress the children up for the program, it’s time to teach faith. (It’s also time for potluck, which Baptists consider very much part of a well-rounded spirituality.)
The story we tell this evening is inspired largely by the narratives of Christ’s nativity found in Matthew and Luke. The shepherds are from Luke’s gospel. The story of the Wise Men (aka “Magi”) is taken from Matthew. We tend to merge them together (check any fireplace mantle) all in one great festive story, yet the two gospels have their own reason for telling the birth of Jesus in their own unique way. Nonetheless, at this time of year, it’s Luke and Mark’s time to shine!
So you might wonder why we read something from John’s gospel. Certainly, this first chapter of John, often called the “prologue” to John is one we might hear on Christmas Eve (and indeed, you will hear it at our service!). Yet, John just sounds off in the clouds with its lofty language. Surely these are not suitable Scripture passages for Advent! How can you put on a program with the kids? John’s gospel does not lend itself to costumes, and woe to the child asked to read this text with its complex phrases. You might just say: Bring me shepherds tending their flocks by night! (And bring me some figgy pudding, and bring it right now!)
John spins a story of Jesus with no manger in sight, and yet if you give John a chance, you’ll see that this gospel tells a Nativity story, though one beyond the more familiar scene set in a first century barn. What John’s gospel brings to life is a story about God sending the Eternal into the Finite, and the Complete takes on the partial. In John’s language “the Word becomes flesh”. In other words, divinity and humanity combine in the person of Jesus. John may not introduce us to Mary and Joseph or take time to introduce a cast of characters. Instead, the gospel has a great voiceover (James Earl Jones style) and you feel strangely compelled to turn out the lights and just let one candle (the Christ candle especially) glow in the dark.
John does have one character appear in this less-told Nativity story. We often call him “John the Baptist”. He’s the wild-eyed figure of the other gospels, bellowing away at the crowd, calling them to repentance and dunking everybody in sight. (You can imagine he’s a crowd pleaser among our type of Christianity….) Yet for the gospel of John (not written by this John—confused yet?), John the Baptist is depicted not in prophet or baptizer mode. He’s there to be a “witness”.
Witness might not sound like the most expected part for a Christmas program. Most of the characters we see in the children’s program are those who seem a bit awestruck by the events surround the birth of Jesus: a virgin shall give birth. The due date falls on a date where the family travels a great distance and yet finds no room in the inn. A star appears in the sky, directing wise men from a great distance. And some shepherds and sheep get a visit by the late night hallelujah chorus up in the heavens. There are plenty of witnesses to the strange yet wonderful story of the birth of Jesus, so why does the gospel of John send in only a rather subdued version of John the Baptist?
John the Baptist revels in God’s work to bring light into the world’s gloom. While people wander around, trying to find meaning to life, John the Baptist is one who has seen in the promises of the Hebrew Scriptures that God shall provide the shining light of salvation to all. Not only will salvation be offered to the world, God comes to us by first-hand encounter. The Word shall become flesh and dwell among us. What a remarkable testimony to the initiative of God, who will not be aloof. The eternal shall become part of the tears and the toil of humanity. Is this any different than a babe being reverenced even while the manger is full of the smells and sounds of a barnyard?
John the Baptist finds himself scrutinized by the authorities of the day. He is proclaiming a story that does not square well with the accepted teachings of the establishment. Is he claiming greatness and authority? Again, he is remarkably demure, claiming that he is just at the forefront of what is about to unfold in the life and teachings of Jesus. He may not see everything that will come to pass, yet he knows and trusts that the Word and Light of the World we call Jesus shall bring the hope that the world awaits. He is not the star of the show, yet he knows his place in the narrative. He will speak boldly of the Light coming into the world, serving as the herald of the Word who became flesh and dwells among us.
Others might scorn his good news. Some might think John himself is the great hope. Again and again, John the Baptist shall be the type of witness the gospel tends to work through. We might call such a person in other circumstances a saint or a holy person. John the Baptist just wants the Light to shine on our otherwise gloomy world.
The modern hymn writer Brian Wren offers a good word about John the Baptist through a prayer Wren wrote for Advent. Wren prays:
“Spirit of God, give us the wisdom of John the Baptizer,
that in knowing who we are not,
we may find out who we are and be glad”.
A witness does not worry about whether or not he or she will be found credible or popular. In speaking the truth and knowing that this is who we are called to be, we find our reason for being. A witness is one who may have to speak a word that is deemed unpopular, yet in so speaking, the witness becomes one who upholds the truth of the message that has them so convinced. The witness of John the Baptist is difficult to live out, yet he is content to be the person bringing this word. The Light shall shine, and John cannot help but testify to its truth.
As Alycia and I got out the costumes and sorted out the animal outfits from the Magi’s crowns, Mary’s hat from angel’s wings, we put each costume on the floor to ensure we had found all that was needed. When we finished our work, I looked around and saw the Nativity story taking shape, though obviously one important element was missing: the young actors who would don these outfits and make the story come to life. These costumes would make little sense without the children to wear them, stepping into the roles that help tell the story.
In a sense, that’s what Advent and Christmas observances are asking of those who follow Jesus. You may find yourself over familiar with the story and the rituals and traditions we have around the Nativity of Jesus, yet do not discount the importance of offering prayers or singing the Advent hymns or Christmas carols. Take time to read the stories of Nativity (Matthew, Luke and even John!). We are in rehearsal right now to take on the role of witness, spending our lives telling others about this Light that the world desperately needs (and sometimes does not recognize or accept). All of this is a refresher course for those who would dare follow Jesus and take up the part of witness, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
]]>That can be a tall order some Sundays! You can sit and pick your scripture texts out weeks or months in advance, even write out some notes on what you would like to say. Yet when that time comes, the headlines in the newspaper (local or global alike) can change what needs to be considered for the good word on a Sunday morning.
Where can hope be found when the world seems to be crashing down? A global challenge, a time of national tragedy, or an unsettling incident in the local community needs, even demands a good word from the pulpit that isn’t thin or trite. No matter how they are dressed up, platitudes about vague talk of hope will sound just like that! Life gets frantic, unnerving and unpredictable. How does “hope” fit into a situation that looks hopeless?
Curiously, the prophet Isaiah is in the same boat. He has a phenomenal word of hope, yet there’s every chance that his joyous word will go unheard or disregarded. He is called to speak the word of the Lord when the city of Jerusalem is in ruins, the monarchy is knocked off its throne, and the people are under the thumb of another nation.
Some might ask why Isaiah bothers with this. The prophet had tried to persuade the people to turn back to God decades ago, yet they ignored his call to repent and return. The Babylonians invaded, the people were exiled, and now, what’s really left to celebrate or believe in?
Yet the story does not end there. Eventually, there would come again the cry of the prophet. Isaiah 40 begins a new chapter in ancient Israel’s life, a summoning for the people to take comfort that their future was about to change. The people had given up (wouldn’t you after life in captivity dragged on, decade after decade?) Those who remembered Jerusalem before the invasion were of greatly advanced years or dead. What use is thinking about the past? We have nothing good left in the world.
Yet the prophet rises, moving back into the public square. With his voice booming, he cries out “Comfort! O comfort, my people!”
When hope seems to have just closed up shop and left town, people slump down and give up. Life starts looking grey, no color left. At one time, the world might have been wide open, but now you don’t think there’s much beyond the narrowing horizon in front of you. There’s not much good to be found!
When hope begins kindling anew within us, we start seeing things a bit differently. When we let hope get a foot in the door, our perspective shifts. Things may not be “night and day” better, yet we can believe there’s going to be some sort of ending to the gloom surrounding us.
Recalling the past, the prophetic hope dares to imagine a future beyond what the people have grown resigned to see as “the way things are and always will be”. Isaiah speaks to a people who have lingered so long as “somebody else’s people” that they have lost track of who they are. Here, Isaiah is setting the people back on a path they once followed when Moses led the Exodus.
The people may have wandered, lost their way and suffered under the rule of other nations, yet God is about to bring them back home. The prophet speaks of God in rather audacious terms. The path will not be hard, indeed, it will be smoothed out with mountains leveled and valleys lifted up.
If they are going home, the people are going without anything blocking a straight shot home! This is not God still cooling down from anger at the hearts of the people wandering away. This is God at the ready to spare nothing to get them out of Babylon and back to their place.
Is it no wonder that we hear such a text on a Sunday in Advent? These prophetic words spoken long ago encourage us to look at our own lives with a different spin than the one we’ve told ourselves or that others have told us is “the way things are”. Hope yearns to bring a good word to us even when other, more negative words have dulled our ears and heart. When we do not listen for hope’s good word, we get nowhere for the better. When we let hope just have one little word with us, hope can start moving into our hearts and minds, beginning to loosen us free of whatever despair has taken hold of us.
Each day, we live with the world’s unpredictability and the travail that goes with it. Hope helps us breathe when we feel like we’re drowning in rough seas and raises us up when we feel cast down or marginalized. Hope strengthens us even when we believe ourselves to be weak or without much left to give. Hope nudges us to see things differently, even when we’re convinced there’s nothing left to see
To a people worn down by the world, yet able to hear the reviving word of hope, Isaiah gives us a good lesson. He reminds us that while we may feel the brunt of the world, God’s word of hope for us abide. Despite how our lives play out, despite the triumph and the tragedy, despite the kings and kingdoms, politics and philosophies all eventually crumbled away in the tides of time, God’s word will stand forever.
Such hopeful words may come in a variety of forms. They may be delivered by prophets we are slow to recognize. They may seem like the last thing we will listen to as we feel trapped by whatever situation looms large in our sight and minds. Yet the word that is final, the word that shall stand up and encourage us is the word that began long ago, continues with us today, and shall be forever the abiding word. God speaks comfort and hope to us now and forevermore.
Hope does not fade or buckle, its truths do not abandon or mislead. Hope strengthens those who are hopeless. As Isaiah said long ago, God’s word abides forevermore. The last word of the Lord and the prophets is always: hope.
]]>In the midst of the Thanksgiving rush, I found myself also answering the phone or with persons walking in to the office. The questions were earnest: Does your church help with Thanksgiving turkeys? Does your church help with fuel or utility help? Does your church provide Christmas presents for my kids? (These past few days, we have fielded more of these type of inquiries for a “November or “pre-holidays” time of year than I can remember.)
During the same period of time, I have talked with a good number of people who have shared the frustration or sadness they associate with these next few weeks. The holidays are filled with bright happy music, yet some find the sparkle and cheer too thin. Grief, loneliness and angst weigh heavily and sometimes going without the notice of others enjoying the season.
Perhaps just like you, I find myself somewhere between the heady rush of the season’s good tidings and the weighty counterpoint of “reality”. How does one navigate the “Christmas season” while admitting that it’s a difficult time for people, whether feeling the impact of a tough economy on an already economically challenged community or when you or another loved one find it a tough time of year to “fit in” when our culture kicks into “red/green overdrive” with its love of radio stations playing 24-hour Christmas music and seasonal festivities abound?
How do we make it through all of the good and the no-so good? How about a good dose of Advent?
The British writer Margaret Hebblethwaite offers a helpful word. She writes,
I have a friend who says that Advent is his favorite season. Why? I think because Advent is a time of exquisite balance between the sadness of the mess we live in and the bliss of the world we would like to live in. (As quoted in Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild, eds. Resources for Preaching and Worship, Year B, W/JKP, 2002, p. 1)
Often, even long-time churchgoers find Advent a curious season, thanks in part to the changes brought by cultural and economic forces that reshape what “Christmas” is all about. In our culture, “Christmas” becomes shorthand for the season between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, yet the Church holds a different, and far more ancient practice to be authoritative. It’s one of rituals and readings, prayers and proclamation that speaks and looks decidedly different when compared to its commercialized version.
For Christians, we get out some candles with specific colors you don’t see in church the rest of the year. (Ever wonder why it’s “three purple and one pink”? Come and join us on the third Sunday of Advent when we light the “rose-colored” candle and we talk a lot about “joy”.) We read scriptures usually not associated with “a child is born in Bethlehem”, as the ancient practices tell us to watch for Jesus’ return in glory as well as his arrival in the manger. We sing Advent hymns, only starting the more familiar “Christmas carols” close to time, as we are encouraged to sing of waiting and watching.
Again, Margaret Hebblethwaite shares,
Advent is when we acknowledge that bliss is not the blotting out of pain with [syrupy tradition], but a process, a pilgrimage, a pregnancy, and—admidst the chaos of the world’s governing—a cry for the coming of the reign of God.
And along the way, if we let these odd rituals, scripture passages and “three purple and one rose” colored candles kindle their message within us, Advent begins to reshape the way we look at this season, providing us with a little perspective, one able to let the “exquisite balance” of living in a world we know to be messy counter with something we can really rally around, an abiding hope and the promise of our faith that God shall make all things well. The message we receive is one that speaks not only to the story of a Child to be born in Bethlehem. The Advent season dares to reach within us, bringing the light of the season into the sad and frustrated places within our hearts in ways not quite touched by the latest Christmas single playing on the radio.
Such a message has deep roots in the biblical witness. In the New Testament readings this morning, we heard the gospel and epistle writers joined together in the hope of Christ’s coming again, a theme always assigned to the first Sunday of Advent. In the first century, the earliest Christians set forth a pattern for living the faith as a people who were shaped by the message of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, the Messiah (or Christ). Within this message, they affirmed his birth as well as his ascension into heaven, keeping hope and offering their trust that Jesus shall return again some day.
Taking such a message as one shaping your life, you begin seeing the season beyond its ceremonial or cultural trappings. We live in the midst of the mess, yet we live our lives with that hope-filled vision that the world as we know it does not have the last word. Advent is a season given over to that sort of hope, far beyond the manger scene, yet all because of God’s initiative to reach the world through Jesus, born of Mary yet “very God of very God” as the ancient creed confesses.
Such roots go further back into the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, where we encounter the travails and challenges of ancient Israel, knowing they are God’s chosen yet forgetting and faltering to keep up their end of covenant loyalty and sole fidelity to God. Despite these habits, the people are eventually summoned to the task of renewed love and loyalty, often by prophetic voices that cry out long before the people are ready to hear the word and take it to heart. In the Isaiah reading, we encounter such a moment when we know the world’s a mess yet we hold out hope that God will be in the midst of things, bringing the world (and us, too!) back to a better path.
When this section of Isaiah was written, the seventy-years of being an oppressed people of the Babylonians has come to an end. Sent home after a generation has passed, the survivors come back to Jerusalem in shambles, and the hard task of rebuilding a city, a nation and even their identity is weighing on them. They too look for that “exquisite balance” between the mess they live in and the bliss of a world is otherwise.
This morning’s Isaiah reading is part of a prayer offered by the prophet on the people’s behalf. (The fuller text of this prayer is found in Isaiah 63:7-64:12). In this prayer, we are given the full range of emotions found when speaking of God in the midst of our lives. On one hand, the prayer offers thanksgiving to God for being the God of the Exodus, the God who intervened on the people’s behalf, the God who loves so fiercely and completely that it is unthinkable to believe otherwise. On the other, we encounter the people’s disappointment with God, the intimation that God was somehow absent or hiding away when the chaotic times of the Exile came about, and the lingering question of why one believes in God when the mess of the world overwhelms.
In other words, it’s a very honest prayer that we may have said in our own way at different times in life. What I love about the latter chapters of Isaiah (40-66) is its ebullient faith yet the words occasioned when the bleakness of reality sets in. We can find ourselves near giddy with faith’s promises resonating within our hearts and later find these words hollow when life comes crashing down. Here, the prophet Isaiah gives us a prayer that runs the gamut of life as it is lived (even when we’re not certain there’s room for such faith experience to be named aloud in worship, let alone our reflections on life).
The exquisite balance of such a text is struck when the prophet laments “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down”. Certainly, some of the mess is not of our devising (cf. the honest feelings of grief, angst, lament about life or the difficulties when matters beyond our control complicate “normal life”). The prophet also shapes the prayer around a truthfulness we are sometimes hesitant to name, that we can be part of the problems in life, our choices making us “miss the mark” and deepen the mess at hand. Here, we begin leveling out the “God/humanity” relationship, away from one that only works when everything’s going well toward an understanding of faith that realizes God is with us, even when we have strayed away or looked everywhere but to God for our hope and trust.
This prayer aims to shape a people able to rebuild a city, a nation and an identity as God’s beloved. Such a prayer does not sugarcoat the difficulties of being in covenant with God, maintaining a relationship that is resolved rather than conditional, hard to let go rather than easy to discard (when more attractive gods or interests appear). Once you get into the story behind this prayer, you discover a plainspoken prayer aimed at the hearts and minds of the people praying it. The prayer is confessional, truthful and looking to God alone for the balance to be found once more in the lives of the people.
When I first read this text, I thought Isaiah 64 a strange text for Advent. Why do we hear this story so seemingly unrelated to the season at hand? The more I let its words and its back story play in my heart and mind, the more I see the prophet Isaiah still at work, proclaiming a challenging word to people yearning to live in something other than the world we know. Indeed, this is an Advent text!
]]>In the midst of the Thanksgiving rush, I found myself also answering the phone or with persons walking in to the office. The questions were earnest: Does your church help with Thanksgiving turkeys? Does your church help with fuel or utility help? Does your church provide Christmas presents for my kids? (These past few days, we have fielded more of these type of inquiries for a “November or “pre-holidays” time of year than I can remember.)
During the same period of time, I have talked with a good number of people who have shared the frustration or sadness they associate with these next few weeks. The holidays are filled with bright happy music, yet some find the sparkle and cheer too thin. Grief, loneliness and angst weigh heavily and sometimes going without the notice of others enjoying the season.
Perhaps just like you, I find myself somewhere between the heady rush of the season’s good tidings and the weighty counterpoint of “reality”. How does one navigate the “Christmas season” while admitting that it’s a difficult time for people, whether feeling the impact of a tough economy on an already economically challenged community or when you or another loved one find it a tough time of year to “fit in” when our culture kicks into “red/green overdrive” with its love of radio stations playing 24-hour Christmas music and seasonal festivities abound?
How do we make it through all of the good and the no-so good? How about a good dose of Advent?
The British writer Margaret Hebblethwaite offers a helpful word. She writes,
I have a friend who says that Advent is his favorite season. Why? I think because Advent is a time of exquisite balance between the sadness of the mess we live in and the bliss of the world we would like to live in. (As quoted in Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild, eds. Resources for Preaching and Worship, Year B, W/JKP, 2002, p. 1)
Often, even long-time churchgoers find Advent a curious season, thanks in part to the changes brought by cultural and economic forces that reshape what “Christmas” is all about. In our culture, “Christmas” becomes shorthand for the season between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, yet the Church holds a different, and far more ancient practice to be authoritative. It’s one of rituals and readings, prayers and proclamation that speaks and looks decidedly different when compared to its commercialized version.
For Christians, we get out some candles with specific colors you don’t see in church the rest of the year. (Ever wonder why it’s “three purple and one pink”? Come and join us on the third Sunday of Advent when we light the “rose-colored” candle and we talk a lot about “joy”.) We read scriptures usually not associated with “a child is born in Bethlehem”, as the ancient practices tell us to watch for Jesus’ return in glory as well as his arrival in the manger. We sing Advent hymns, only starting the more familiar “Christmas carols” close to time, as we are encouraged to sing of waiting and watching.
Again, Margaret Hebblethwaite shares,
Advent is when we acknowledge that bliss is not the blotting out of pain with [syrupy tradition], but a process, a pilgrimage, a pregnancy, and—admidst the chaos of the world’s governing—a cry for the coming of the reign of God.
And along the way, if we let these odd rituals, scripture passages and “three purple and one rose” colored candles kindle their message within us, Advent begins to reshape the way we look at this season, providing us with a little perspective, one able to let the “exquisite balance” of living in a world we know to be messy counter with something we can really rally around, an abiding hope and the promise of our faith that God shall make all things well. The message we receive is one that speaks not only to the story of a Child to be born in Bethlehem. The Advent season dares to reach within us, bringing the light of the season into the sad and frustrated places within our hearts in ways not quite touched by the latest Christmas single playing on the radio.
Such a message has deep roots in the biblical witness. In the New Testament readings this morning, we heard the gospel and epistle writers joined together in the hope of Christ’s coming again, a theme always assigned to the first Sunday of Advent. In the first century, the earliest Christians set forth a pattern for living the faith as a people who were shaped by the message of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, the Messiah (or Christ). Within this message, they affirmed his birth as well as his ascension into heaven, keeping hope and offering their trust that Jesus shall return again some day.
Taking such a message as one shaping your life, you begin seeing the season beyond its ceremonial or cultural trappings. We live in the midst of the mess, yet we live our lives with that hope-filled vision that the world as we know it does not have the last word. Advent is a season given over to that sort of hope, far beyond the manger scene, yet all because of God’s initiative to reach the world through Jesus, born of Mary yet “very God of very God” as the ancient creed confesses.
Such roots go further back into the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, where we encounter the travails and challenges of ancient Israel, knowing they are God’s chosen yet forgetting and faltering to keep up their end of covenant loyalty and sole fidelity to God. Despite these habits, the people are eventually summoned to the task of renewed love and loyalty, often by prophetic voices that cry out long before the people are ready to hear the word and take it to heart. In the Isaiah reading, we encounter such a moment when we know the world’s a mess yet we hold out hope that God will be in the midst of things, bringing the world (and us, too!) back to a better path.
When this section of Isaiah was written, the seventy-years of being an oppressed people of the Babylonians has come to an end. Sent home after a generation has passed, the survivors come back to Jerusalem in shambles, and the hard task of rebuilding a city, a nation and even their identity is weighing on them. They too look for that “exquisite balance” between the mess they live in and the bliss of a world is otherwise.
This morning’s Isaiah reading is part of a prayer offered by the prophet on the people’s behalf. (The fuller text of this prayer is found in Isaiah 63:7-64:12). In this prayer, we are given the full range of emotions found when speaking of God in the midst of our lives. On one hand, the prayer offers thanksgiving to God for being the God of the Exodus, the God who intervened on the people’s behalf, the God who loves so fiercely and completely that it is unthinkable to believe otherwise. On the other, we encounter the people’s disappointment with God, the intimation that God was somehow absent or hiding away when the chaotic times of the Exile came about, and the lingering question of why one believes in God when the mess of the world overwhelms.
In other words, it’s a very honest prayer that we may have said in our own way at different times in life. What I love about the latter chapters of Isaiah (40-66) is its ebullient faith yet the words occasioned when the bleakness of reality sets in. We can find ourselves near giddy with faith’s promises resonating within our hearts and later find these words hollow when life comes crashing down. Here, the prophet Isaiah gives us a prayer that runs the gamut of life as it is lived (even when we’re not certain there’s room for such faith experience to be named aloud in worship, let alone our reflections on life).
The exquisite balance of such a text is struck when the prophet laments “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down”. Certainly, some of the mess is not of our devising (cf. the honest feelings of grief, angst, lament about life or the difficulties when matters beyond our control complicate “normal life”). The prophet also shapes the prayer around a truthfulness we are sometimes hesitant to name, that we can be part of the problems in life, our choices making us “miss the mark” and deepen the mess at hand. Here, we begin leveling out the “God/humanity” relationship, away from one that only works when everything’s going well toward an understanding of faith that realizes God is with us, even when we have strayed away or looked everywhere but to God for our hope and trust.
This prayer aims to shape a people able to rebuild a city, a nation and an identity as God’s beloved. Such a prayer does not sugarcoat the difficulties of being in covenant with God, maintaining a relationship that is resolved rather than conditional, hard to let go rather than easy to discard (when more attractive gods or interests appear). Once you get into the story behind this prayer, you discover a plainspoken prayer aimed at the hearts and minds of the people praying it. The prayer is confessional, truthful and looking to God alone for the balance to be found once more in the lives of the people.
When I first read this text, I thought Isaiah 64 a strange text for Advent. Why do we hear this story so seemingly unrelated to the season at hand? The more I let its words and its back story play in my heart and mind, the more I see the prophet Isaiah still at work, proclaiming a challenging word to people yearning to live in something other than the world we know. Indeed, this is an Advent text!
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