The Journey is Joyous

Isaiah 35:1-10

James 5:7-10

Matthew 11:2-11

-As the child who had never before been to a Christmas service said when asked what it was like, "I want some of that `umphant.'" "What's that?" the child was asked. "You know, it's what those people were singing about--`O Come all ye faithful, joyful and try umphant' I'd like to try some of that `umphant.'" John C. Morris

            Advent is a journey.  It is a walking towards.  It is a walking through the desert, through the darkness, through the wilderness.  We do not yet see this new thing that God has planned. We do not yet see where God is coming to us next.  But while we wait, we are invited to be in the waiting, to be present in the journey.  And today, while we celebrate and light the candle of “joy”, we can remember the words from Isaiah, that even the desert shall rejoice.  As we keep our eyes open, we will see that in our journeys, joy is being offered to us, even when our journeys are hard, even when they are challenging.

I remembered a childhood story I once checked out of the library for my kids when they were quite little.  The book was called Captain Underpants and the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers, written by Dav Pilkey.  (New York: Scholastic Inc., 2013).  At one point he wrote about parents and teachers being hard on kids.  And he wrote,

“You have to wonder, why are most grown-ups like this?  Weren’t they ever kids themselves?  Didn’t they enjoy laughing and cheering and goofing around when they were young?  If so, when did they stop?  And why?

Now I certainly can’t speak for all adults, but I’m going to anyway. 

I think it’s a lot easier for adults to stomp out someone else’s fun than it is for them to reflect on their own lives and figure out where it all went so miserably wrong.  It’s just too depressing for grown-ups to ponder all the decades of compromises, failures, laziness, fear, and regrettable choices that slowly transformed them from running, jumping, laughing, fun-loving kids into grumpy, complaining, calorie-counting, easily offended, peace-and-quiet-demanding grouches.

In other words, it’s harder to look within yourself than it is to shout, “HEY YOU KIDS, CUT THAT OUT!”

            There is so much wisdom in this tiny piece of a silly book.  As we talked about last week, healing comes from that willingness to face ourselves.  But joy, and the ability to be in the moment, to be present and open to God’s movement within and around you – that comes from gratitude, and a willingness to see with the eyes of God’s love and grace.

            That is not to make light of any of the pain or struggles that you may be experiencing.  The desert is a dry place, and I know that some of you are experiencing hard times, difficult times.  We can feel like John must have felt in prison – trapped, unjustly waiting doom.  This may not be a happy time.  But again, the words of John, too, give us hope.  From prison, he finds the joy of looking for the Messiah.  In prison he is told that the blind are receiving their sight, the lame are walking, the lepers are being cleansed, the deaf are hearing, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

            As Frederick Buechner says in his book Wishful Thinking… “In the Gospel of John, Jesus sums up pretty much everything by saying, ‘These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.’  He said it at the supper that he knew was the last one he’d have a mouth to eat.  Happiness turns up more or less where you’d expect it to – a good marriage, a rewarding job, a pleasant vacation.  Joy, on the other hand, is as notoriously unpredictable as the one who bequeaths it.”

            But the promise from Isaiah is right here – joy is to be found in the desert as well as in other unexpected places because Joy comes with God’s coming. Joy comes when we see with God’s eyes.  Joy comes when we glimpse God’s presence.  Joy comes when we have moments of gratitude, for whatever it is: for our very breath.  As Bernard Malamud (new Library of America edition coming out): "Life is a tragedy full of joy."

            So I’d like to ask you to invite you to share with one another some experiences of joy: some places where you have been touched by the holy and where you have seen God.  These are not “happy” things, but moments of joy that I am asking you to ponder and share.

            When our family was in deep crisis, my eldest daughter was particularly suffering.  She and I went for a walk at one point and she just lamented that she no longer understood the purpose of life.  She felt that life was working to live and living to work and in the middle was just hardship and pain and she felt despairing and depressed and sad.  I didn't know how to help her.  But as we walked suddenly this incredibly big, beautiful butterfly flew in front of us and landed right before us on the sidewalk.  Jasmyn's sad, despairing face suddenly burst into full blown joy as she exclaimed, "Mama, look!!  A butterfly!!"  That joy, that gift of presence and beauty, comes at the most unexpected times.

            A month ago I was at a clergy gathering for the Multi-Faith Action Coalition.  As we went around the room introducing ourselves, one of the priests said he had a story he had to tell us.  He has just begun his priesthood at one of the local parishes and he said that in the first week that he was there, there came an evening when he was alone, by himself in the parish office, when he heard an insistent pounding on the door.  At first he ignored it because the parish council had told him that many needy people were constantly coming to the door asking for help and that when the priest was there alone, it would not be safe for him to answer the door.  But the pounding on the door continued, and the priest, remembering the scriptures that said, “welcome the stranger because by doing so you often have entertained angels unawares” he finally decided to answer the door.  When he did, he found a youngish, very skinny, man on the doorstep who said he was extremely hungry and in need of food.  The priest went to their food collection barrel and gathered food to give to the young man.  Then suddenly he remembered Matthew 25 which says that whenever you feed someone who is hungry, you are doing it to Jesus himself.  On an impulse he called the young man who was leaving back and said, “I just have to ask you… are you by any chance Jesus?”  The young man gave him an intense but clear smile.  And he responded, “No, I’m not Jesus.  I’m Jesus.” (pronounced the Spanish way).  The priest continued by saying that his heart felt pierced by joy in that moment, touched as if an angel of God had indeed reached down and touched his heart, as if the Spirit had entered through the young man’s words. 

            For me, too, hearing the story, brought tears pouring down my face.  Are tears joy?  Of course.  They are the depth of our feelings: they touch our deepest places.  They are our most real prayers.  But again, you can also see in this story the difference between happiness and joy.  It is happy to face the reality of extreme poverty in our own communities?  To see those who are without homes, without food, without ways to care for themselves?  No.  But even in the midst of that pain of the reality of our communities and societies, we can find joy.  Joy is seeing one another with God’s eyes.  Joy is opening up with gratitude, and vulnerability to what life has to offer.  Joy is being in the moment and being grateful for each breath that you take.

            Father Gregory Boyle, in his book Tattoos on the Heart, described a time when his father was dying of a brain tumor.  He was in the hospital and he requested a pillow from home – but specifically a pillow from his wife’s side of the bed.  Father Boyle said, “you know, the hospital provides pillows...” but this was what his dying father had requested.  Father Boyle and his mother went into the hospital room, gave him the pillow and then his mother left to use the restroom.  He writes,

“I’m about to make small talk about the view… but I turn and see that my father has placed the flowery pillow over his face.  He breathes in so deeply and then exhales, as he places the pillow behind his head.  For the  rest of the morning, I catch him turning and savoring again the scent of the woman whose bed he’s shared for nearly half a century.  We breathe in the spirit that delights in our being – the fragrance of it.  And it works on us.  Then we exhale (for that breath has to go somewhere) – to breathe into the world this same spirit of delight, confident that this is God’s only agenda.” P151

God provides that joy all around us.  But it takes our choosing of gratitude, looking for the good, seeing with God’s eyes in order for us to receive that joy deep within. 

These are the places of joy.  These are times and places where we can live in the desert rejoicing, where we can celebrate the blind seeing, the lame leaping like deer, the speechless singing for joy.  Hear again these words from Isaiah.  And I invite you to be in a quiet place inside yourself, to close your eyes, if you are comfortable and to be in the joy of God in the desert, on the journey.  Here the Word of God:

“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus, it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.  Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.  Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.  A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.  And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Advent Repentence

Second Sunday of Advent

Rom.15:7-13

Matthew 3:1-12

What was the point of today’s passage from Romans?  Paul is making a point of God’s grace, God’s love, God’s presence being for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews.

How about the passage from Matthew?  What happens there?  In the passage from the gospel of Matthew John is criticizing the Pharisees and Sadducees.  As Jesus does later, here John is calling them hypocrites. Again, the Pharisees and Sadducees were the religious leaders of the day.  And John is telling them that their religiosity, their stance of faith means nothing because it is not backed up by acts of justice.  It is not supported by their behavior.  The root of their faith is about loving God, loving others, loving.  But they are not acting loving, not behaving with justice in any way.  And he is confronting that hypocrisy.  He then goes on to humble himself saying he is not worthy.  In some ways this is a showing to the Pharisees and Sadducees how they should be behaving themselves.  Because we all have some kind of hypocrisy, none of us get it all right all the time.  The willingness to self-reflect, to look at yourself and see your own hypocrisies, to name and own your own flaws: this is a huge part of being people on the way, people who are loving and caring, people who are growing.

So, the real question here is: What do these passages have in common with one another and more, what does any of it have to do with Advent? 

As we look at every Advent, the Advent call, the Advent promise, is that everything will be thrown on its head.  That those we exclude will be included, and that those who think they have it all together will have to face some very hard truths about who they really are and what God is really asking for them to be. Paul is making the point that the Gentiles as well as the Jews are acceptable to God.  It does not matter to God that they had a different religion, different belief system, and at that time, a different heritage, ethnic background and race. This would have been shocking at the time, it WAS shocking at the time.  But that is what Paul is saying. God has accepted, once again, those deemed unacceptable by the people.  John in today’s gospel reading is confronting the Pharisees and Sadducees’ hypocrisy and saying that their repentance is not genuine, their actions are not supporting their proclamation of being people on the way, people willing to change, people willing to do what God is asking them to do; their behavior is not “bearing the fruit” of love and compassion and grace.

What this has to do with Advent is that Advent, like lent, is a time when we are called to self-reflection, to repentance as a major part in our preparation for Christ’s coming.  We prepare the way for Christ’s coming into our hearts, into our lives, by looking closely at the places that are dark, hypocritical, hidden, “in error” and which need tuning, and sometimes, radical change.  We do this from a place of knowing that we are loved, “accepted” by God regardless of our past, present or anything else.  We are loved, but God is not satisfied to just love us - God calls us to respond to that love, from a place of gratitude, and to be willing to risk changing, and growing and becoming whole.  Because while God accepts us as we are, it is almost impossible for us to accept God into our hearts or really experience God at the deepest level from a place that is unloving, that lacks compassion or grace.  Therefore we must, not because God asks us to, but because there isn’t another way - we MUST repent - change, look at our lives, in order to accept God in in this new way in which God is coming this Christmas.  This isn’t easy.  I understand that.  Yet we are called to do this on a regular basis.  Especially during critical times in the church year.  Advent and lent, in particular, call us to this hard work of repentance.

I’ve talked a little about twelve step programs with you in the past but today I want to talk about them again for a few moments.  As most of you know, the twelve steps provide a way for people with addictions of any kind and even for those who are simply connected or related to those with addictions, to deal with those addictions.  How do they do this?  By asking people to follow the twelve steps as a way to healing.  And these are:

Twelve Steps

1. We admitted we were powerless over (alcohol, or whatever addiction you are dealing with)—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood (God).

Admitting we have a problem God can fix.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Confession

7. Humbly asked (God) to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Repentance

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 

Continued, regularly scheduled confession and repentance.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood (God), praying only for knowledge of (God’s) will for us and the power to carry that out.

As a result becoming closer with God.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Hoping to share with others the joy of that increased closeness - evangelism!

Do you notice how much of this is focused again on “repentance?”  I know that’s a Christian word for a non-Christian program, but that’s basically what it is.  This is about repentance - admitting your wrongs to God, admitting your wrongs to another, being willing to change those wrong behaviors and to fix the mistakes that you have made.  Looking again and again at your behaviors and “when you are wrong, promptly admitting it.”  People in twelve step programs do this to become whole - they do it to free themselves from their addictions.  And they find that as a result, they are closer to God, closer to experiencing the Divine.  They have “spiritual awakenings” that bring them such joy, such wonder, such change that they cannot help but share it with others - which is what real evangelism is about.  It’s not about “converting” others, it is about sharing your joy and your blessings in a way that is contagious and miraculous and beyond words. 

Well, God calls us to do the same things and for the same reasons.  This hard work of self-reflection and correction which we do weekly in our prayers of confession, which we do seasonally during advent and lent, that is part of the very foundation of our faith.  God calls us to this action not because God wants us to suffer, or feel inferior or feel less whole.  Instead it is because God wants wholeness for us and wants health for us. We cannot be the best we can be without that self-reflection and without being willing to change some things. God also wants this for us because, as I said before, with every step towards wholeness we find new ways to invite God in to our lives, we meet God in new and deeper ways, we experience God in new and fuller ways.  This is the work of a Christian.  It is the work of growing.  It is the work of LIFE because without it we cannot be whole people.  As Richard Rohr says, “Henceforth, it is not "those who do it right go to heaven later," but "those who receive and reflect me are in heaven now." This is God's unimaginable restorative justice. God does not love you if and when you change. God loves you so that you can change. That is the true story line of the Gospel.”

Again, this is not to say that this is easy.  And sometimes it is hard to know where even to start.  So I want to give you a place to start this Advent season.  There are many ways to do this, and this suggestion is just one.  But if you are stuck with how to do this kind of self-reflection, how to do this kind of “repentance”, I suggest one place to start is by looking at your regrets.

Just after college I went as a Volunteer in Mission to a community in North Carolina.  Among other things this community was beginning the process of building a retreat center up in the mountains.  A couple weeks into my stay one of the pastors leading this community, Mike, took me to the site where they hoped to build.  There wasn’t yet a real road up to this site.  So in order to get there, we began the slow, windy trip driving up a very steep logging road that was bordered on one side by the rising wall of the mountain and on the other by a sheer drop off into a valley below.  Mike and I rode in a very old, beat up pick-up truck which was so fragile that the roof of it wasn’t really attached anymore, just kind of hung on by a little metal here and there.  Mostly it just sat with rusting, jagged edges, bobbling and squeaking on the top of the truck.  There were no seat-belts in this truck and the shock absorbers were shot.  It also had no emergency brakes, or at least no way to access them within the body of the truck.  As we bounced and jolted uncomfortably up this steep, cliff-edged trail, I clung to the handle on the door, just praying we would make it safely up to the top so I could announce my decision to never ride up or down this mountain again in this particular vehicle.  I would walk, if I had to, no matter how long it took.  As my head hit the roof and these grumpy unhappy thoughts raced through my head, suddenly the engine on the truck died.  “Stupid truck!”  I thought.  But quickly my annoyance turned into terror.  For along with the engine dying, the breaks went out.  Completely.  The truck paused for a half second and then began to roll back down this windy, steep, cliff-edged hill with amazingly fast acceleration.  As Mike frantically pumped the breaks and reached for the non-existent emergency brake, all the while turning the key and trying desperately to re-start the engine, I knew it was over.  That was it.  This was where my short life would end. 

After what seemed like eternity, but was only a few seconds, Mike, rather calmly, I thought, announced that he would be turning the truck into the side of the mountain to try to slow it down.  He did so with incredible skill, and as the truck backed into the side of the mountain, the truck perched for a minute in space, on the brink of rolling.  If it had tipped over, I would not be with you today, but at the bottom of that cliff.  Instead, after an unsure minute, the truck stopped.

That experience was profound for me.  During those moments when I thought my life was over, much of it did, as the proverbial stories say, flash before my eyes.  Much of what was included in that flash was a plethora of regret.  What things, you might ask, would a 22 year  young woman have to regret?  Well, not too much of my regret was for actions in my past.  Most of it instead was about the future.  I regretted not knowing what it was to be married, I regretted that I would never have children.  I regretted that I hadn’t yet gone to seminary.  I regretted that I had turned down another mission opportunity in favor of this one, I regretted that I was not spending my time in real service to other people, especially those people in the world whom I believe God aches for, hurts for, calls us to empower: the poor, the displaced, the underprivileged. 

Those regrets, while at first painful, became gifts to me in that they allowed me to get a real glimpse into what was really, ultimately important to me: having a family, living a life of service, loving God.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to keep hold of that self-reflective ability.  Many more of my regrets as a seasoned adult have to do with the past, with choices I’ve made or people I’ve hurt.  But they are still gifts to me: they still tell me about problems I need to address, dreams I need to pursue, behaviors that I need to change. 

Regrets, though painful, are a gift from God.  They show us what is really important to us, pointing out things we need to change, giving us opportunities to make amends, do some healing, and to work through mistakes.  There are things that we regret that we are unable to fix: opportunities that we didn’t take that we may never have again, or people we have hurt who are no longer living or whom it would be impossible or hurtful to find.  There are things we cannot change about the past.  But I deeply believe that God would not give us, or call our attention to, or even allow us to live with these regrets if there was not something to be done with or about them.  I think about how in the Harry Potter series, at the very end, the villain is told that the one way he can save himself is by being willing to look at what he has done and to feel remorse.  The wise characters in the book point out that this remorse is the most painful thing a person can feel.  And yet, that remorse, that willingness to face ourselves and to make changes, this is what brings us ultimate healing, growth and wisdom.  There are lessons to be learned from those regrets that will encourage us to make a different choice in the future: I will not fail in this way again, or I will not choose in this way again.  If amends can be made, they need to be.  If they can’t, maybe other ways can be found to offer good in the name of the thing we regret that we did before.  Regrets can be deep pullings in our lives, calling us to look at something.  We need to not push those uncomfortable feelings away, but stay with them, figure out what God is calling us to do with them, and “repent” in the sense of turning around, choosing a different path.

Advent, the time when we prepare our hearts for God to come to us in a new way, this time is an invitation to do this work.  This is the time to face our regrets.  This is the time to ponder how we are called, in what ways, and in what ways we are not living up to that call or following that call and how we need to do it differently.  This is the time to go deeper so that God may come to us anew, more deeply, more fully, more wholly.

Today’s passages tell the story: we are acceptable, because God loves us no matter what: Jew, Gentile, black, brown, red, yellow, green, purple, short, tall, squatty, whatever.  God loves you.  But because God loves you, God wants to be in real and full relationship with you.  God calls you, therefore, to prepare your hearts in a new way for God’s coming and God’s presence in your hearts, in your lives.

Watching our fledglings leave the nest

         I've been feeling very down lately.  Anxious, sad, stressed, depressed.
         Lonely.
         I couldn't figure out why.  Yes, we've experienced an important family death lately.  But I felt that didn't really account for the level of my anxiety and sadness.  It certainly didn't make sense to me that I'd be feeling lonely while surrounded by family, while reconnecting with family folk I haven't seen in forever, while anticipating my daughter coming home from school for winter break.
        But then I remembered that it was that time of year which is always hard for me, or has been for the past 9 years.  9 years ago my life changed radically and I went from being a partnered person caring for my three thriving kids into a solo mom dealing with tragedy and stress and loss and trying to help my kids through the same.  This time of year, every year, I feel this way.  I think that our bodies remember, our bodies house those memories associated with season and time, even when we don't consciously remember what is triggering our feelings.
        But this year is also different for me in another way.  My eldest daughter has "gotten it together," is leaving the nest, is spreading her wings, making friends at school, not calling as often and certainly not needing my help or support as much. She is learning well how to "adult," and she is stepping into doing what needs to be done on her own, she is living her awesome, beautiful life in ways I don't even begin to understand.  She is connecting deeply to others, to her peers.  She is doing it right.  She is doing what we all hope our kids will do - stepping into being her own person and taking flight.
       The truth is that I am struggling with it.  When I became a mother, even though I was working and still had friends and other family to occupy my time, I moved into a new identity.  My primary identity became that of being a mother.  I love being a mother.  I think about my children constantly, even when I am not with them, they are the lights of my life, my biggest joys, my greatest gifts and the raising of them has been my biggest accomplishment.  This became doubly so when I became a solo mom.  They were where my focus had to be.  Their concerns became my largest challenges.  Their needs and fears and sufferings took the largest part of my attention. Truthfully everything I did, and have done ever since, including working, has been to make sure they have what they need and are okay as they step into life.  I had to do this, or they would not have become the healthy, happy, well-adjusted kids (in the face of and despite great crisis) that they have become.  The fact that my eldest is thriving in school and in her life is in part a testimony to the depth of love and support I gave her that has enabled her to bloom, to work through her losses, and to grow into a beautiful young woman.  I know this.  I can't take full credit, and I won't.  We were surrounded and continue to be surrounded by a community of helpful, caring people and they have credit too.  Jasmyn herself also needs to take a lot of credit, for being willing to do the work, to grow, to learn, and to step forward.  But I can claim a piece of it.  They know they are loved beyond measure.  They know they are more important than anything to me, and that I would do anything to make sure they are healthy and happy.  That knowledge and that experience has made a difference in their ability to move and grow and live.
       Still, I find myself feeling a little bit like Shel Silverstein's Giving Tree.  When they were born I gave them my apples, fed them off of the sweat and tears of my work and my care.  But when we went through crisis I gave them not only the branches, but my very trunk so that they might survive and thrive.  Again, I made a choice to do what I believed was necessary for them to be okay.  And it has paid off for them.  But now I am the stump, especially where my eldest is concerned.  I am waiting for her to come home and rest for awhile on that stump that is me before she leaves again for other adventures.  And this is a sad and hard thing for me.  I won't change it.  I will not ever choose to hold her back from her dreams and adventures, from her living her life as fully as she can.  But I am lonely for my eldest daughter.  And, at some level, for my other two children as they become independent teen-agers.
       I think about the olive tree in our back yard.  We cut down this huge olive tree because it was blocking the window, causing problems on the roof, was creating great mess both in the yard and tracked into our house, and, most importantly, it was creating pollens which were making my son (with his allergies to olive pollen) very sick.  We cut it down to a stump, and yet it has not given up.  Hundreds of new branches continue to sprout from the sides of the stump each year.  Each year that tree makes it clear that it belongs there and has no intention of dying.  I know that I can choose to be a stump like the olive tree: to find new ways to grow and thrive once my kids are gone.  I can invest more in other relationships now and to find my purpose, meaning and identity in my work and other activities.  I can and I will.
       I also know, though, that this still involves grief. Every change is a loss at some level.  And grief is a natural part of watching our kids grow and leave the nest.
       Today I am grieving my daughter.  Even as I am proud of her and grateful for who she is becoming, I am grieving our closeness, her needing me, her dependence.  I am grieving being the person she was closest to whom she loved the most.  I am grieving the primary identity I had as Jasmyn's mom.  I will always be her mom, but it can't be who I am first and foremost anymore.  My life has to be more about other things now, and less focused on her.
        I know most parents go through this, and I know that I, too, will survive it.  Being a parent is about self-less love.  We don't do it to have people always around us who will love and care for us.  We give of ourselves and watch the blooms grow that are our children.  I am so grateful to be mother to my three wonderful kids.  The grief is just a small part of that.  But I am naming it today in the hopes that others who might be feeling similarly know they are not alone.  And to name for myself that the sadness I'm feeling is okay.  It's a testimony to the depth of the love I gave and give still.  And for that I am grateful.