Christmas:

My congregation and her friends and family celebrate with a Lessons and Carols service that follows the story of salvation through scripture and enhances the readings with anthems and carols. It's a story that can be a bit dense and hard to understand, especially when you pull out 9 short passages of a 66 book compilation of the human experience of God at work.

But it's just this weird story that is life changing, world changing. It's a story of God's grace; God creates, loves, and works for our reconciliation with God and each other simply because of God's great love for us, not for anything we do or are. We are beloved. Period.

Ponder this Christmas morning the power of those words. We are the beloved children of God. Period. Imagine if each of us lived fully into that love, and treated each other like we are beloved children of God. Imagine....

And the love part...God's love is not a syrupy, saccharine Hallmark expression. God's love works hard. It learns and works for the welfare through concrete actions.

And that's the story. Text after text of God's work to love God's people. Promises enacted. Promises for the future.

That's the weird little story we celebrate today. The world is busy celebrating the perfect gift, table setting, wine, tradition....Perhaps less confusing and obtuse, just look at Pinterest and you know what it's supposed to look like. Fun? sure. Memorable? likely. But life-changing? world-changing?

Do I live this story perfectly...not even close. But this is the story I choose to be shaped by. This is the story I'll struggle with until it makes some sense.

This is the story that makes Christmas truly Merry....

We are beloved Children of God. Period.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us...

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. (verses from today's reading, 1 John 4:7-16) 

Advent: The Light...

My house is quiet. Kids safely arrived in the middle of the night. Unlike the wise men, they entered the house with no fanfare...didn't even rouse the dog. The gospel of Matthew assures Joseph that the birth is God's plan. The prophet Isaiah proclaims the hope of God's people.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn...

Always, I'm pensive at the beginning of the end of this season. I thought yesterday as we finished the gifts and went to the grocery for the umpteenth time how lucky we are to be able to do this. How do you celebrate Christmas when you struggle to keep a roof over your head, struggle to feed your children, struggle to rebuild after floods or fire, struggle to live through cancer.

The quiet, dark house allows the thoughts. I'll lose this soon enough. Once all are up and around, the questions give way to the conversations and the cooking and the worship and the gift-giving and receiving.

But this morning I live where the people of God have lived for so very long. It's dark outside and I am waiting for the light. I know it is coming. It came yesterday. It will come again. Even in the darkness here, the light shines on the other side of the world.

Today it's my job to bring shalom to my family, to speak a word of hope and comfort to the gathered worship assembly. Today it's my job to watch for God at work, to see God's promises revealed, to trust that some day, all will live in the light.

Tomorrow, I work to bring that light to bear in the places I am put, in the things I can do, in the way I live and breathe. Fortunately, I don't have to save the world. That's been done. But there's work for me. For you. For us all.

Be not afraid...

Arise, shine, for your light has come...

Trust God at work...

Advent: What?

Two days before Christmas. One of the gifts I ordered came shipped with new grill guts that I had to buy. Can we just say, Amazon, that shipping crystal glasses with grill guts leaves a funny jingling sound in the box.

I say this because I have nothing to say about the scripture. Even with a "seeing" prompt, it's all weird. Psalm 50 is a nice picture of God's kingdom. Jeremiah 31 is the same thing. Galatians is Paul's riff on the law, which I think, perhaps, he wrote two days before Christmas when he had a million things on his mind and his editor was on vacation. His verbal gymnastics make no sense to me there. And then the gospel reading is the genealogy in Matthew.

And God must still be asleep, because despite a prayer for illumination, I don't see anything.

So, I will do what all practicers of the faith do at many points in their journey. I will have a second cup of coffee, start my day, say my prayers, and know that seeing will come another time, another place. I have the wonderings from these small puzzle pieces of scripture that fit together in a larger story, but I'll have to shake the box of shards for awhile...

Advent: I See........

The line in this familiar story "Fear came over all their neighbors..." caught my eye. Elizabeth has her baby, names him John. People can't believe it. No one in their family is named John. Zechariah (mute, as you'll remember) writes the name on a tablet. John. His "mouth was opened" and he could talk again...he began praising God.

Fear came over the neighbors.

This is weird. They've never acted like that before. Old age...it's not pretty.

I guess I've always paid attention to Elizabeth and Zechariah and their joy. Today I see the neighbors--and the 24 hour news cycle.

Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered them and said, "What then will this child become?" 

Poor kid...nutty parents...old...beyond sense. The gospel writer softens it with a final "For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him." Right...they can say that for the baby. But most of us know how John grew up...eating locusts and wild honey, wearing camel hair, doing nothing decently and in order.

"'What will this child become? ' Hmmmmm....I see." I can hear the neighbors now.

We think we know...especially if fear is in the mix. Fear demands a decision, a judgment. Keep ourselves safe from the different, the weird, even the God-stuff that is out of the box. Take no chances...for what will this child become?

Maybe that's why it is so difficult to "see" the road of faith to travel as the people of God. Maybe that's why the angel's first words are "fear not." Maybe that's the Advent challenge to seeing the in-breaking of God...no fear.

Hmmmm...I see...

Advent: Well-being for All

Shalom is what the psalmist prays for in Psalm 122. Shalom, well-being in every aspect of life. We translate it "peace" in English, but we lose much of the meaning.

Jerusalem is both the actual city, and the future hope that rests in God calling all cities to be "his." Jerusalem, literal and metaphorical, is the destination of God's people, living in a city ruled by God, under God's judgement, where God lives.

"Seeing" is the theme of our last few days of Advent and this psalmist "sees" in Jerusalem the shalom that is our hope.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

"May they prosper who love you.

Peace be within your walls,

and security within your towers.”

For the sake of my relatives and friends

I will say, “Peace be within you.”

For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,

I will seek your good.

The prayer is for peace. But the psalmist doesn't stop there. Prayer becomes seen...enacted.

For the sake of relatives and friends, I will say "Peace be within you." For the sake of the house of the LORD, I will seek your good.

Well-being for all. Then the kingdom of God is seen.

I imagined re-creating one of our political debates in this column this morning, only having the participants say things like, "well, even though I like my tax cuts, for the sake of the house of the LORD, I will seek your good."

Sigh.

But I will say this to you. For the sake of the LORD, I will seek your good...your shalom. And I will pray that you will do that for the next person so that we are "bound firmly together."

That would be something to see!

Advent: The Art of Seeing

Seeing with God eyes is an art. Usually it has to be cultivated to strengthen. If you think about us all drawing pictures as children, then gradually letting our joyful art eyes go as we begin to think we weren't very good, or weren't as good as others, or were terrible, then you know what can happen to our God-eyes as well.

Seeing God at work usually means looking at small things, insignificant things, typical things. We strive to see God at work in the massive, the magnificent, the majestic. God, of course, can be at work there...but usually is somewhere else.

Hannah's song is the reading from 1 Samuel 2 this morning. Hannah finds herself pregnant after years of barrenness and being made fun of and excluded. Her song sings what she sees with God-eyes. It celebrates the good news of turning the world on its head, of raising up those who have been kept down and putting those who have become their own gods in their place. God is not at work in the priest in this story, but in the pathetic, barren woman praying in the temple. Her son will be one of the greatest priest/prophets in the kingdom...but who would know to look there?

The gospel is the story of the angel, Gabriel, coming to Mary to announce her pregnancy. It will accomplish the same and soon Mary will sing Hannah's song--literally. God isn't working to change the world through the Roman emperor. God brings change through the peasant girl, her carpenter husband, and a baby who never loses his God-eyes.

Seeing God at work requires letting go of the expected, the always-dones, the we can'ts. It takes practice. And faith.

Glasses are not required.

Advent: Celebrate, Darn Ya...

In Luke 1 we get the story of Gabriel's announcement to Zechariah that he will be a father.

Yeah, Gabriel. The Angel. And father--with an old, barren, wife.

That's just a regular day at work.

Zechariah went into the temple sanctuary a regular priest and came out with a vision and a promise. But no voice. Because when confronted with amazing, good news, he launched into practicalities and a demand for guarantees. "How will I know this is so? We're old..."

I can imagine Gabriel is almost left speechless by what comes out of his mouth next. "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God and have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news." Really, you dumb priest? You come in here to offer incense to the Holy One in expectation of miraculous work, of a word from God, of hope for your future. And today, you get it, and you question, you doubt, you move the mighty works of God into the can't-be-done-because-it's-never-been-done.

Gabriel would definitely go on...even if just in his head. "You should be celebrating! God is working toward your salvation. Your "next chance" is coming from an unexpected place, but you know God. God provides through the unexpected. Just let go of what you think you know, dude. Just look around and do a little celebrating at what you have been given."

I have to wonder what we miss, especially as the people of God, because we have narrow expectations, or have to be practical when God is offering us risk and reward, or because our "next chance" might demand us to look at what is and not what is expected.

Zechariah walked out muted. No one could hear the good news he had to proclaim.

How many times do we complain our good news cannot be heard? Perhaps an angel has handed us good news and is watching us ignore it. Perhaps the angel is standing there saying "Celebrate, darn ya...God is here and working. You just can't see it."

Advent: Through All Generations

The author of Psalm 102 is seriously ill, or that's what I take from the language. He/she could also be grieving. Grief often makes us feel like we will die. Whatever is the case, the language is dramatic: bones burning like a furnace, too wasted to eat bread, loud groaning, bones clinging to skin.

But...

The author interrupts great suffering with a sure foundation:

You, O LORD, are enthroned forever; your name endures to all generations.

Twice in the course of the lament, God's eternal presence, strength, and work are celebrated. It is simple to say--that is faith.

It is not simple to do.

Whatever the horrible is in our lives, can we sing the endurance of God's love to all generations? Can we worship through our tears? Can we continue to walk in the gift of community that God has given us? It's quite the contrast with another passage of the day, the story of the fall in Genesis where the first inkling of trouble results in finger pointing and blaming and shame.

You, O LORD, are enthroned forever; you name endures to all generations.

That's really how I want to live. Perhaps I'll start with the refrain every time I see/hear/read something political...

Advent: Celebration to Come...

John is still in the throne room, weeping bitterly at one point because their is a scroll to be opened and no one worthy to open it--until, of course, Jesus enters. No surprise there. (Read it here.) During all the activity around the scroll, the elders are still celebrating...still praising. The story of the great cosmic battle between good and evil is yet to come, but celebration of the reality of the outcome still happen.

We read Psalms of deliverance and thanksgiving for deliverance in the same way. There is much celebration of the "end" when God's power is finally in charge--even in the "durings" when we can't see it like we want.

Frankly, all the apocalyptic readings this morning have me in the exact same boat. I just need to celebrate through it. The end will come...

Advent: What Must Take Place

Back to the weirdness of Revelation. I wrote a piece at work yesterday on the sovereignty of God, certainly something to celebrate. This image from John's Revelation is just that. You really have to read it:

After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! And the first voce, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this." At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! And the one seated there looks like jasper and carnelian, and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald. Around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones are twenty-four elders, dressed in white robes, with golden crowns on their heads. Coming from the throne are flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and in front of the throne burn seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God; and in front of the throne there is something like a sea of glass, like crystal.

Around the throne, and on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with a face like a human face, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing, "Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come."  (Rev. 4:1-8) 

So here is John, in the midst of no-way-God-is-in-charge-of-the-world circumstances, and he sees the "reality" of what is not usually seen. God is on the throne. God's glory is beyond what any human ruler could imagine or gather together. And God's praises are sung without ceasing.

Frankly, watching who is sitting on earthly "thrones" and who is running for the closest "throne" makes me celebrate the reality of God in charge.  "Come up here and I will show you what must take place after this."

Insert sigh of relief here. Then celebrate.

Advent: The Words of the Amen

Revelation 3:14-22...at first glance, not much of a celebration. But, that is why reading, sometimes, with a theme in mind makes you think twice, dig deeper.

The church at Laodicean is in trouble because they are celebrating. They are just celebrating the wrong thing. They celebrate their wealth, their prosperity, their lack of need. All the things they have earned by themselves, all the accomplishment they have achieved on their own, all their successes--they celebrate.

No mincing of words here. "You do not realize you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." That should stir some folks up. What on earth does God mean? All you have to do is look around and see how well we are doing!

Jesus insists. The gold you need is mine. The white robes of purity, mine. The salve to anoint your eyes, from me. Remember this is all symbolic to the readers. Jesus wants a recognition that things of value are from God, not from our own efforts. I have a friend reading about the origins of the Moody Bible Institute in an American context that the movers and shakers at the top of society who held most of the wealth wanted a way to control the workers at the bottom. "Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps," was the plan. It would work for a few. Those could be held up as examples to the rest. And if you couldn't get to success, suddenly it was your own fault.

And Jesus stood over those celebrating their wealth and achievement and said, "You do not realize that your are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." Celebrate the shalom that brings all to the table, that shares the resources, that credits God for the bounty instead of your own brilliance. Make it possible for all to come into the kingdom.

I think it's not a celebration until everyone is celebrating. Jesus says "I am standing at the door knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me." As those of us with wealth are congratulating ourselves on our accomplishments, we look at the poor and the struggling and we say, "Jesus is standing there knocking. Why don't you come in?" But Jesus is knocking for us. We are so busy celebrating our wealth and prosperity, we're missing the banquet in the Kingdom. It's not a celebration until all are celebrating.

"The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the origin of God's creation..." offer the true re-distribution of wealth. It's not about worldly riches, people--Jesus says. It's about discipleship that comes from God. And when you are celebrating God's gifts, no one gets left behind struggling with their boot-straps.

Advent: Just Do it...

What would we do without Nike's slogan to riff from...

Reading Psalm 145 out of the daily lectionary is a daily celebration. Literally. It's in there every day.

It's a good thing, really. I don't read it every day, but I probably should because I should be reminded to celebrate every day. The verbs get me...

Extol, bless, laud, declare, meditate, proclaim, celebrate, sing...

From one generation to the next, we celebrate our God.

Much recent research around gratitude has been published. Apparently, those of us who live in an active practice of gratitude are healthier and happier. Pausing daily to recount what you are grateful for makes a physical and mental difference in our health and well-being. In a culture that constantly reminds us of what we want that we don't have, what is broken, what is scary, what is depressing...it's pretty hard to stay focused on gratitude.

Celebrate in the darkness of Advent. While we are waiting, be grateful. Use those verbs. Consider the very character of God: gracious, merciful, abounding in steadfast love, good to all, compassionate. Be aware of what God does: upholds the falling, raises the bowed down, provides food, watches over us.

Even in the best of situations, its too easy to forget to be grateful. Sometimes in the worst of times, it never crosses our minds. I think I'm seeing the value in the daily lectionary's choice to include it every day.

Being grateful is a celebration of what we have been given. Which brings us full circle...

Just do it.

Advent: Celebrating

As we continue to watch for God at work, we enter a week that we celebrate. We start with Amos, finally--good news in Amos.

"On that day," God says. "On that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen, and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old." On that day the healing starts, on that day the promise is good.

I am always so relieved to get to this part of Amos that I tend to forget what goes before. Usually, I don't read the book straight through...it's lectionary or devotional reading, so this gets separated from the "punishment" phase. And how quickly we forget that this promise comes in the darkest of dark. "...the booth of David...is fallen..."

And "that day" is coming, life is still in ruins, in shambles. But "that day" is coming. And we celebrate because we have seen God's faithfulness in the past, and we trust God's faithfulness will be seen again.

And the "will be seen" is important. God's faithfulness never goes away, but often we don't see it, especially when we are being corrected, when we are suffering. Part of the journey of the mature disciple is learning to trust God's faithfulness when it is unseen.

So the Advent pattern of worship and study helps us practice living in to this. We walk through darkness together, seeing the judgment, seeing the darkness of our situation. We watch for the coming of our redemption, the coming of the Kingdom. And now we celebrate.

We are still in the darkness. We are waiting for the in-breaking. But we are celebrating the reality.

God is present. God is at work. God will raise us up "on that day." God is raising us up today and every day.

It's a promise.

It's our promise.

Advent: The Last Hope

Last because it is Saturday and tomorrow the theme changes.

Last because Jesus talks about the end times in this passage from Matthew. Granted, the passage reflects a conventional understanding of "end times"...a time of suffering that happens before the "messianic age." At one point, Jews believed that a human ruler could come back to the throne of David, re-establish Israel as a nation, and bring peace and prosperity to the entire world. Reformed Judaism understands this will be God's work more than the work of a human.

Regardless, this passage is easy for me to ignore if it is about end times. That is just so far out of my daily routine that I don't even think about it. But if I hear it in the "today," I hear hope. "The one who endures to the end will be delivered. The gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all the nations."

The hope I hear is for today. "Keep the faith," my grandmother would say. I think the best thing I can do for the kingdom is live faithfully today, even in the midst of the inevitable chaos and destruction that humans don't seem to be able to avoid. That is the best witness I can offer. But that may be what proclaims the kingdom.

I hope that will proclaim the kingdom. I've proclaimed plenty to my elected representatives recently. Protecting the poor and at-risk, the refugee, providing for all people ...these are the thing the prophets have been calling us to. This is what it means to bring in the Kingdom--which, of course, will be God's work. But a little endurance (which I take as working on the kingdom even when the world doesn't seem to hold those values at all) can't hurt.

From who we vote for to how we treat our neighbor, we are called again to the love God, love neighbor thing. In a nutshell, that is our hope.

Advent: Hope in Darkness

Psalm 102 is one of  my favorites. Somewhere deep in very dark times, the writer of this Psalm seeks hope. The Psalm dances back and forth between the psalmist's trouble and the character and power of God. Nothing is resolved, but in the struggle, the psalmist looks forward to what God is expected to do and backward to God's work in laying the foundation of the earth and heavens.

That seems to provide the hope needed to travel through the darkness. Frederick Buechner says, "The Psalmists doesn't try to explain evil. He doesn't try to minimize evil. He simply says he will not fear evil." This psalmist, in fact, assumes the trouble experienced is under the power of almighty God.

How different from the conversation today where we spin our wheels trying to find the cause of evil, pointing fingers in blame, assuming evil can be eliminated if we do the right things or have the right leaders. Instead, the psalmist cries out to God in distress and then places hope in God's power instead of his own.

I wonder what life would be like if we quietly worked for justice and mercy without the blame and the fear and the insane assumption that we, our fully human selves, can remove all trouble from our lives? If we were fully grounded in hope in God's power, would the light cut through the darkness more quickly? Would we, then, live secure, our offspring established in God's presence?

Advent: Justice, Mercy, Faith

The mirror is being held up again to the people of God. In Jesus's challenge today (from the gospel of Matthew),  the charges disturb...we are making children of hell like ourselves. We might head them in the right direction, but then we keep them from the Kingdom of Heaven. (Remember, this was not a future kingdom for Jesus, but a kingdom present on the earth.) We teach the focus on sacrifice and ritual and the-way-things-should-be-done and we forget the things that will place us fully in the Kingdom...justice, mercy, faith.

I use "we" deliberately. As a child, I was taught how terrible the Pharisees were. It was easy to excuse my own behaviors when looking at "them." Or perhaps ignore is better than excuse. We just didn't ever look in the mirror. We were too busy condemning the Phariseees.

Our favorite task is seeking out the failure, the weakness, the sin of the other. We bring it, proudly, to the Master and we lay it at his feet. We hold out our hands for reward, and Jesus hands us a mirror.

Again.

"You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!" Great line. We immediately begin to search for gnats and camels. If we can just identify them, we can fix this and enter the kingdom.

As we search, Jesus hands us a mirror.

Again.

As I read the texts this morning, I was sorry I saw the mirrors again. I'm ready to look somewhere else.

Exactly the point, says Jesus.

And hands me a mirror.

Again.

Advent: Trust with Mirrors

Jesus continues his Matthew teaching by holding up the behavior of the Pharisees as self-centered and misguided. Not, he says, centered in God's love (yesterday's discussion). We also are being introduced to the seven churches in the Revelation--today's church, Ephesus. Like the Pharisees, the church at Ephesus is doing most things right, but they have "abandoned the love they had at first."

Repentance is required of both groups in order to serve God and shine as God's light in the world. The theme is the same. You are doing many of the right things; you are doing them without love.

It fascinates me that "the right things" were so involved with looking at others and judging their behaviors. But then, when asked to look at their own behaviors, the people fail to trust God.

I have this suspicion that if God gave us a 20 x 20 mirror with a pinhole of "window" to look through to work on the behavior of others (like determining false prophets and helping others grow in faith), we'd spend all our time working on finding the pinhole instead of studying our own needs.

Love is the corrective...though a difficult corrective. When we are doing all things grounded firmly in working for the welfare of others, we have a better chance of being in God's will.

We also must pay attention to the truth that most of Jesus condemnation was directed toward those already identified as the people of God. "Sinners and tax-collectors" were accepted, loved, included. God's people were flat out judged.

Looking for the coming of God, the in-breaking of God into our world, may happen first in the mirror, especially if we are brave enough to admit our failures, even as we do good.

Advent: Trust in Grace and Love

The first part of today's gospel reading is Jesus's reiteration of the greatest commandment.

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the greatest and first commandment And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Here's the reality on which I build my life...and the reality that gives me hope, even when others don't know that reality. This love is not a sentimental feeling that allows all kinds of abuse to happen. This is a powerful love--defined as an internal characteristic that expresses itself externally through concrete acts that work toward the welfare of others.

We of the reformed faith pin our hopes on God's grace and love. Grace is the truth that our worth, our value, is based simply and completely on God's love for us. (And, we believe this is true of all people, not just "us." Before we are aware of God, before we are able to respond to God, God loves us. Love for neighbor is our response to God's love for us.

That reality will transform the world. That foundation of love and grace is our hope, our call, our future.

Living that way is hard work. It is so much easier to exclude, to blame, to live in fear of our neighbor, especially those who are different...unknown in some way. Our natural state is to think we are our own lord and master, we earn our value, deserve our place.

My daughter sat in on some foster care review sessions yesterday. As the "adults" in the room sat with teens who were wards of the state and discussed their situations, their "cases," they matter-of-factly reported that "the parents want no reconciliation" with their child.

Is anything more devastating than being unwanted by the people who are supposed to work for your well-being? Is there any more powerful message than the God who love and works unceasingly for each of us, regardless of our situation, our mistakes, regardless of anything about us?

And, having become aware of that great love we call grace, can we do anything else but work for the well-being of each other?

There's no politician, no economic station, no job, no skill that will save us. God's grace and the practice of love are our only hope.

Advent: The Ultimate

My understanding of The Revelation of John has changed fairly recently with Brian Blount's commentary. The book I had always been taught was about "end times" and that outside of a few great scenes and phrases was pretty useless to my life became a book of hope. The Revelation is a story of ultimate redemption, God overcoming all impossible odds to redeem God's people.

Today's reading from the beginning of the book includes a statement of our ultimate hope.

Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him,  

even those who pierced him; 

and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.

So it is to be. Amen. "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."

 In a recent post I wondered how to share my trust in God, how to help people see. At this point in history, we have a promise that the Alpha and Omega will be visible to everyone...even those who have no interest in seeing.

Today calls for faithful living, regardless of outcomes, placing our hope in the one who is and who was and who is to come.

Advent: Hope

Week two of Advent is grounded in an exploration of hope. We won't be in Amos for this post. We are nowhere near the hope in the early part of Amos.

The opening sentences of daily prayer today from Lamentations, though, builds our foundation. Lamentations is a seldom-read book immersed in grief. And yet, for the people of God, a voice of hope in grief should be no surprise.

The Lord's unfailing love and mercy never cease, fresh as the morning and sure as the sunrise. (Lam. 3:22-23)

We grieve, we struggle, we live our fully human lives with hope because "the Lord's unfailing love and mercy never cease..." 

The New Testament reading is the story of the birth of John, a story of elderly parents who find themselves pregnant. (Though I must confess my daily prayer is that I am never part of that biblical miracle!) Elizabeth gives birth and on the day of the child's circumcision, she names him John. Friends and family argue...the child should be named after his father...and no one in their family is named John. When the infant's father, Zachariah, speaks up to concur, the muteness he has endured since he doubted God's promise of redemption at the beginning of the pregnancy is ended. His words of prophesy end this passage:

Blessed by the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. 

Zachariah is looking forward to his son's work, but speaks in present tense. Perhaps this defines God's hope, or our hope in God's work. Zachariah knows his son will need to grow and be taught and prepared for his work, so the redemption he would work for would certainly be in the future. But Zechariah speaks in now. God's promise is so sure it is present, even when we cannot see the activity happening.

That promise of in-breaking, of Kingdom here on earth, is not yet fulfilled, but we speak of it in the here and how, we live lives of hope-full service because the sun comes up every morning.

That gets us started here on a Sunday, where we will be gathered in worship strengthened in hope.

Advent: Trust and Greening

Life is weird sometimes. So many families are grieving so intensely...the news feed is still full of the mass shooting in CA and the shooting yesterday of a child and her mother at soccer practice.

And today, we "green" the church for Christmas. Lots of people will come. We will eat, drink (coffee), and be ridiculously merry for about three hours until the church glows with celebration.

And Amos will shout in the background with God's words, "I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies...Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps."

Should we not decorate today?

Perhaps we really shouldn't. But perhaps we should. What God asks instead of the songs and the festivals is that we "let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." We in this little congregation are far from perfect, but we work hard in different venues for justice.

Could we work harder, yes. Will we. Yes. Will we forget to work hard some days. Yes.

Today, the greening of the church represents the hope that God's righteousness and justice will be fully accomplished. For me, it is a promise that my prayers for victims will be paired with work toward God's justice and righteousness. And I will trust that God's great power will take my meager efforts and turn them into God's work.

That's my Advent hope for the day...

Advent: Trust the Good

The American "public" is masterful at redirection. Individuals get swept up in the peripheral distractions and we accomplish nothing. After the latest mass shooting, complaints against the political tweets of "prayers for victims" exploded. People rightly complained to their political figures that prayer didn't take the place of responsible action.

So now the issue is not about gun safety, it is about the "criticism" of prayer. And lord knows the 80% of our population that never commit themselves to a regular discipline of faith practice in community don't want to be criticized for tweeting their prayers. (OK...that was snarky...but for today, snark stands.)

Take out the weird names and places in Amos, and it could have been written today. The people of God have lost their way, getting distracted by false gods and bad behaviors...forgetting their core identity and how they were called to live. For God, it is never about the prayers, it is always about the behaviors.

Amos is full of judgment and hopelessness...but things are never hopeless with God. Mixed into the judgment are sentences of hope. This passage is a good example.

Seek good and not evil, that you may live:
and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said.
Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the LORD the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Plato understood "good" as an abstract concept, but that is not the Hebrew understanding. Nothing is abstract in the Hebrew world. Everything is lived, enacted. Good is a lived experience...and in God's world, good means good for all, not just for "me." Good doesn't stop with prayer (or sacrifice, if you live in the OT world). Good means doing justice, loving kindness, walking humbly with God.

Seek good. To do that, we have to trust that God's understanding of good is, indeed, what we need...who we should be. And then we have to work in that direction. Seek...

Watching for God to break into our world is not passive. God can do it alone, but God invites us to be part of the good...because our lives and the lives of our neighbors will be "good." Justice will prevail. Kindness will be the foundation on which we build our laws and our policies. And we will walk humbly with God...which means way more than a prayer tweet when the next tragedy happens.

Advent: Trust and Obey...

When I was little we sang an old hymn called "Trust and Obey." Trust and obey, for there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

I hear a lot of trust language in the public sphere...but not much obey. Another mass shooting happened yesterday. The one in California got the press, but it was the second of the day. The FBI defines "mass shooting" as four or more people...and there have been 355 mass shootings this year in the US.

And we, the people of God, seem to be hiding behind our "trust" as we send our prayers for the victims and avoid with every fiber of our being anything that would look like obedience to "love God AND love your neighbor as yourself."

This is not a political column, but I don't want anyone to think that the way we are living together right now is "Christian." We don't listen to each other. We don't respect each other. We live in fear and live making a living off that fear. Many of our politicians make statements that, if we heard them from men dressed in black spandex with assault rifles and the ISIS symbol, we would consider terrorist in nature.

Most significantly, we don't work for God's shalom. God's peace and wholeness is for all people, and working primarily for a political party's benefit, or a economic class or a race or a gender ...that's not obedience. 

Are the issues complex? You bet. Will they lead to other massive challenges? No question. But we cannot complain that our problems stem from taking God out of our schools. Our problems stem from the inability to trust and obey that God to whom we give lip service.

The passage from 2 Peter  3:11-18 asks how to live while we wait for God to return to establish God's kingdom again on this earth. Nowhere in the Bible are God's people excused to act however they want because God will win eventually. We are always charged to live lives of holiness and godliness--trusting and obeying if you will. We are looking to an earth where righteousness is at home...not power or suspicion or killing or money or fear of others.

The author of 2 Peter acknowledges there are some thing hard to understand in this life of faith that "the ignorant twist to their own destruction." As I was taught to trust and obey, I was also taught that one sure way to tell if you were "obeying" in the right direction was to watch the fruit of the Spirit... love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Gal. 5:22-23)

Are we the beloved nation of God? Are we the exceptional people of God who live in this wonderful, rich country that has resources that are beyond what we need? Not today we are not. I don't see love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I see hate, anger, fear, impatience and judgment, meanness, impatience, and actual pride in behaving rashly without self-control. And don't nod your heads here and blame "those people" with whom you disagree. Ask yourself what part you play. Change begins with each one of us trusting and obeying "love God and love neighbor as self."

We are twisting ourselves to our own destruction. And I know because the fruit we are harvesting is not fruit I want to eat, it is not fruit I want to feed to my children or grandchildren, it is not fruit I want to share with the world.

The Advent question is whether or not we can truly trust that God's way is the right way...and then obey God's commands, even at risk of our lives and our power. That will build us into the people we want to be...the people who the world will see as God's people.

Advent: Trust in the Darkness

It's all about dark these days. Dark when I get up. Dark when I go to bed. I'm far less functional in the dark, for sure. I. need. sunshine.

Advent is a season of darkness. Literally. Figuratively. We talk about waiting in the darkness for the Advent of the Light, the in-breaking of God into our world. I think about the people who never quite have enough money to get through the month, even though they work full time. Today, I remember the pressure that creates and am sad that we, the richest country in the world, can't do better caring for each other. Darkness.

I think about the family who lost their teenage son to suicide on Thanksgiving morning. He had struggled for so long...and so had they. Suffocating darkness.

Struggling with a toddler day in and day out, coming home every night responsible for feeding your family dinner, cleaning that toilet one more time...even little things sometimes add up to the sighs too deep for words. First world problems, we say. And we know we are lucky we have dinner, toilets, and toddlers...but still.

As we read daily lectionary in the dark of Advent, we encounter a Psalm of praise.

There's something to be said for being born an infant (even outside of the clear physical benefit to the mother). We go to sleep in the dark every night and wake up to the light every day of our lives. Can you imagine coming into the world as a fully aware adult and being swallowed by darkness at the end of day one? We know when the sun sets the sun will rise. We develop a rhythm of trust.

In the darkness, looking for that elusive in-breaking light, Psalm 147 is the rhythm of trust:

Praise the Lord!
How good it is to sing praises to our God;
for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.
The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted,
and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
The Lord lifts up the downtrodden;
he casts the wicked to the ground.

Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving;
make melody to our God on the lyre.
He covers the heavens with clouds,
prepares rain for the earth,
makes grass grow on the hills.
He gives to the animals their food,
and to the young ravens when they cry.
His delight is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner;
but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love.

Hoping in God's steadfast love...the rhythm of trust. For me, this is like daylight. I was raised in the trust. I knew in the darkness, God would bring light eventually. I looked back to see when it had happened before. I look forward to seeing God work in the future. And so far, I have. And when seeing is difficult, people who have traveled the road before me share their experiences and encouragement.

I got my in-breaking this dark morning. It leaves me with a wondering of all those still in the dark. How can I share the trust in this love of God that is steadfast, always there, always at work to bring good, always for everyone. How can I invite others into the hope of the rhythm of trust?

Advent: The Power of Trust

I learned this story in Matthew 21:12-22 early in life. "Faith can move mountains," I was assured. My friends and I worked on this, sometimes together and sometimes by ourselves--thinking it was the "other's faith" holding us back. But we never moved a mountain or even a fork. We tried hard to move a fork.

It's always an interesting exercise to bring a perspective to a text. You tend to read with different eyes and that happened again when I read with "trust" in mind. I watch Jesus slam into the temple authorities by driving out the buyers and sellers--and probably the kickbacks that allowed them to set up in the temple in the first place. So the sacrifices get disrupted while Jesus heals the blind and the lame who came to him inside the temple. Several rules broken by this time...pissed temple authorities. We hear nothing from the disciples. Maybe they are watching, but maybe they've seen enough healing that they are wondering what's for dinner and how they might celebrate Passover.

Jesus goes outside the city for the night, to Bethany. The next morning he returns to Jerusalem, traveling hungry (perhaps the disciples never actually got around to providing dinner--Chipotle wasn't around as a fall back.) Jesus sees a fig tree, but when it has no fruit, he is angry and curses it. It withers.

Now he has the attention of the disciples. Now they are watching what he is doing. Now they want to know the trick.

Not the blind and lame...but the fig tree...now that's a cool talent.

This morning I have to wonder if Jesus was serious about faith moving mountains. I think perhaps pure snark was pouring from his mouth. And I wonder what would have happened if the disciples had joined in the important work of inclusion, healing, and praising in the temple the day before.

I wonder how much more time I would have spent helping my friends rather than moving forks if I had trusted in the right thing...