Come All Who Thirst

Isaiah 55:1-13

John 4:13-14

12/12/21

 

               Today is the third Sunday in Advent.  And we are invited to remember on this “joy” day of Advent, that God’s coming is one of great and unexpected joy: that we find God in the surprising, the beautiful, the weird and different, and in the most unexpected places.  So, I invite you to pause for a minute and think of when you were surprised by something beautiful that brought you joy.  As you think I will name a few places that I have found recently: the email from Rina/Honey/James that began a wonderful friendship with them and Lizzie: a real gift.  Kristi applying for our director position here.  A bouquet of flowers arriving on my doorstep from Hope Solutions.  Getting to see the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit and being deeply touched by it.  Seeing my son so easily making friends at school.  Hearing the deep questions at our Bible study: all of these things have been deep gifts where God’s joy, God’s delight, God’s beauty showed up unexpectedly and profoundly for me.  Do you have those joy moments of your own in your mind?  Share one with your neighbor.

But on this day, I want to tell you that on this joy day, it is not just that we are called to delight in the God who comes to us in beautiful and unexpected ways.  I want to say to you something different.  I want to tell you that it is also God’s joy to delight in YOU.  God has given you this life to LIVE it.  I had a wonderful conversation recently with one of my heroes: Rev BK Woodson,  a pastor friend of mine in Oakland whom I respect, admire and value immensely.  I was telling him that I felt our purpose in life was love, kindness, generosity, service.  I said to him that for me I also thought preaching, teaching, caring for the “least of these”, parenting, nurturing was part of my job or purpose in life.  That this thing called pastoring is what I am to do with my life.  And that part of my struggle with SABBATH and rest has been that when I rest, when I am not actively DOING, I can sink into a feeling that my life has no value, no worth.  In those moments of non-activity or non-service, I feel useless and pointless.  BK challenged me and said, “God gave you life to LIVE it.”  He said our purpose in life is to celebrate this beautiful life God has given us and that we honor God through delighting in the good of this amazing world.  Look around!  Take time to delight in the good!

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 to him, “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

               Later he wrote, “I was brought up and educated to give assent to certain propositions.  God is love, for example.  You concede, ‘God loves us,’ and yet there is this lurking sense that perhaps you aren’t fully part of the ‘us.’  The arms of God reach to embrace, and somehow you feel yourself just outside God’s fingertips.  Then you have no choice but to consider that ‘God loves me,’ yet you spend much of your life unable to shake off what feels like God only embracing you begrudgingly and reluctantly.  I suppose, if you insist, God has to love me too.  Then you can explain this next moment, when the utter fullness of God rushes in on you – when you completely know the One in whom ’you move and live and have your being,’ as St. Paul writes.  You see, then, that it has been God’s joy to love you all along.  And this is completely new.   Every time one of the Jesuits at Dolores Mission would celebrate a birthday, the same ritual would repeat itself.  ‘You know,’ one of the other Jesuits would say to me, for example, ‘Your birthday is Wednesday.  The people are throwing a ‘surprise party’ for you on the Saturday before.’  The protests are as predictable as the festivities.  ‘Oh come on,’ I’d say, ‘Can’t we pass this year?’  ‘Look,’ one of my brothers would say to me, ‘This party is not for you – it’s for the people.’  And so I am led into the parish hall for some bogus meeting, and I can hear the people ‘shushing’ one another – el padre ya viene.  As I step in the door, lights go on, people shout, mariachis strike themselves up.  I am called upon to muster up the same award-winning shock from last year.  They know that you know.  They don’t care.  They don’t just love you – it’s their joy to love you.”

One day, a professor entered the classroom and asked the students to prepare for a surprise test.  They all waited anxiously at their desks for the test to begin.  The professor handed out the exams with the text facing down as usual.  Once he handed them out, he asked the students to turn over the paper.  To everyone’s surprise, there were no questions – just a black dot at the center of the white sheet of paper.   The professor, seeing the expression on everyone’s faces, told them the following:    “I want you to write about what you see there.”  The students, confused, got started on the inexplicable task.  At the end of the class, the professor took all the exams and started reading each one out loud in front of all the students.  All of them, with no exception, defined the black dot, trying to explain its position in the center of the sheet. After all had been read, the classroom was silent, and the professor started to explain.  “I’m not going to grade you on this, I just wanted to give you something to think about.  No one wrote about the white sheet of paper.  Everyone focused on the black dot – the same thing happens in our lives.  We have a white piece of paper to observe and enjoy, while we always focus on the dark spots.  Our life is a gift from God, with love and care, and we always have reasons to celebrate – nature renewing itself every day, our friends around us, our jobs that provide our livelihood, the miracles we see every day.  However, we insist on focusing only on the dark spots—the health issues that bother us, the lack of money, the complicated relationship with a family member, the disappointment with a friend.  The dark spots are very small when compared with everything we have in our lives, but they’re the only ones that pollute our minds.  Enjoy each moment that live gives you.  Be happy and live a life filled with love.”

I believe it was Jill who passed this onto me at the beginning of COVID and I want to share it with you now: 

Me: Hey God.

God: Hello.....

Me: I'm falling apart. Can you put me back together?

God: I would rather not.

Me: Why?

God: Because you aren't a puzzle.

Me: What about all of the pieces of my life that are falling down onto the ground?

God: Let them stay there for a while. They fell off for a reason. Take some time and decide if you need any of those pieces back.

Me: You don't understand! I'm breaking down!

God: No - you don't understand. You are breaking through. What you are feeling are just growing pains. You are shedding the things and the people in your life that are holding you back. You aren't falling apart. You are falling into place. Relax. Take some deep breaths and allow those things you don't need anymore to fall off of you. Quit holding onto the pieces that don't fit you anymore. Let them fall off. Let them go.

Me: Once I start doing that, what will be left of me?

God: Only the very best pieces of you.

Me: I'm scared of changing.

God: I keep telling you - YOU AREN'T CHANGING!! YOU ARE BECOMING!

Me: Becoming who?

God: Becoming who I created you to be! A person of light and love and charity and hope and courage and joy and mercy and grace and compassion. I made you for more than the shallow pieces you have decided to adorn yourself with that you cling to with such greed and fear. Let those things fall off of you. I love you! Don't change! ... Become! Become! Become who I made you to be. I'm going to keep telling you this until you remember it.

Me: There goes another piece.

God: Yep. Let it be.

Me: So ... I'm not broken?

God: Of course Not! - but you are breaking like the dawn. It's a new day. Become!!!

               IN today’s scripture from Isaiah we are told to enjoy the richest of feasts.  We are told that in listening to God we will really live.  God tells us that God’s ways are more and expanded and bigger than we can imagine.  And that the sun and rain and snow come down as gifts to all.  As we read, “Yes, you will go out with celebration,

    and you will be brought back in peace.

Even the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you;

    all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

 In place of the thorn the cypress will grow;

    in place of the nettle the myrtle will grow” 

               And Jesus too says, “The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life.”  These are words, too, of celebration, of delight.  Of JOY.

We always read in the Christmas story, “'Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.”  This advent, I’d like you to consider that that great joy is for YOU, too.  That Jesus’ awaited coming was the amazing and often surprising joy of a baby born in hard circumstances: the first born to a young couple.  The joy is that while they may not have stayed in the inn, they stayed somewhere.  The joy is that others celebrated with them. The joy is that God was there with them, in the baby, in the relationships, in the birth.  And that joy is for YOU, too.  That God is with you, Emmanuel, God with us.  And that God calls you to live lives of celebration and thanksgiving and gratitude and joy!  Thanks be to God.  Amen. 

Advent Surprises

 

Ezekiel 37:1-14

John 11:25-26

12/05/21

Candle of Peace

               This passage from Ezekiel was written when the Israelites were in exile.  It is a promise to them that they will return from exile, that they will have life again, that things will return.  We know that this took an entire generation.  It was not the same people, for the most part, who were returning.  That meant that this promise of new life would not be brought to fulfillment, to fruition during the lifetimes of most of the people.  Still they were invited to trust that this promise, made to a community, and NOT to individuals, was true, and would happen for the Israelites.  They were invited to delight and celebrate and trust in the wonderful news that Israel would be restored, even though they, themselves, would not be part of that restoration and would not be around to see it, witness it, live it.  I think in many ways, the people of the time had a much better long-vision approach.  They could rest in these hopes for their children, and their children’s children, and find acceptance, joy, and contentment in that, even when they had to have known it would not be for themselves. 

               For us, Advent is a time of waiting for that new life to come to us, waiting for God to come to us in amazing and new ways.  It is often also considered a time of repentance, like lent.  We are invited to take the time of waiting to work on being the best that we can be so that when we encounter God with Us, Emmanuel, anew, we can present to God the best of ourselves.  As such, then, it is a time of deep self-reflection: which in turn can often be seen as an invitation into a rather dark place.  The darkening of the days, the shortening of the days during Advent mirrors this call or invitation which, when done seriously and with intention, will take us back through a history that includes regrets, losses, darkness.  Serious self-reflection invites us into parched, lonely periods in our spiritual journeys.  Looking deeply and truly at ourselves can lead into times of doubt, hopelessness, depression, fear and anxiety.  But we are invited into this dry valley during Advent, to do the work of preparation in anticipation of the Christmas, the new life, the resurrection of the bones, that is to come.

A poem written by Dempsy Calhoun reflects this.      

Bone

 

Bone lay scattered and artifactual

Wind-rowed like dead branches

Whose tree bodies repeat the desiccation

All hope bleached and lost

Living moisture evaporated

 

Calcified memories of what was

Or seeds of what could be

Wandering shards of vessels

That once thrummed with pure energy

Where honor and dishonor wrestled

 

Stripped of living water to walk the hills

Needing only gravity to line the valley

 

It was never about the bones anyway

Rather a glimpse of pure power

A reminder of who's in charge of restoration

Real hope lies in the Source

(Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year A, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide.)

Apparently when you look at the bones of a people, like in archeological digs, you can tell so much about those people: age, gender, general health, diet, diseases, injuries, habits, and what their diet was based on the density of those bones.  So, the invitation here, with the combination of this scripture during the advent call to self-reflection is to look at your spiritual bones to see what they reveal about you.  What do your spiritual bones tell you about your spiritual diet, about your age in terms of faith formation, about your spiritual health?  What do they say about what you have gone through, where your spiritual injuries have been?  Would they show habits of prayer and reflection, of conversation with God?  Would they show the gifts of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?  It invites us into the question, “Can these bones live?”  And to genuinely reflect on that.

We hear from the passage that God’s breath plays a major role in these bones returning to life.  Remember that in Hebrew, the word “ruach” means breath, spirit and wind.  It is the breath of God that breathes life into everything.  As the commentator from Feasting on the Word said it,

            “Ezekiel's vision is given for a people who have lost heart, who are suffering a death of the spirit, a living death in exile in a foreign land. Their temple has been destroyed, their holy city plundered, their leaders maimed and put in chains, their soldiers put to the sword, their young men and women either killed or dragged off into a foreign land. Ezekiel witnesses the soul of his people gradually wither and die, becoming as lifeless as a valley of dry bones. Can these bones live? That is what God asks.

This vision is held up again today, when so many in the world have had their own experience of dry bones, literally and metaphorically. Our earth has been fashioned into massive graveyards of dry bones, transforming valleys into vales of desolation—from Darfur and the Congo and Zimbabwe to Myanmar and Pakistan and Iraq, from the gang slayings and the drug wars in our cities to all those places lacking food or drink or clothing or shelter or any respect for life. Not only is there the physical toll people continue to pay, but also the spiritual death that poverty, natural disasters, and genocide exact from people to reduce them to a state of dry bones. Can these bones live?

Today we hear a promise only God can give. God tells the prophet to speak to these bones, saying: "Thus says the Lord God: I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live" (v. 5). God promises not only sinews and flesh and skin, but, most importantly, God calls the breath to come from the four winds and breathe upon the slain. So it happens. This breath is the spirit of God, the life-giving ruach God breathed into the first human creature in the garden.” (Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year A, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide.)

We are invited to be part of this self-work.  I will tell you, when people talk about things that have upset them, they usually focus on the other person.  “So and so did this.”  But a time of Advent is a call instead to look inward.  “I participated in this problem by doing x.”  “I contributed to this division, or this chaos, or this schism in this way.”  That self-reflection is the turning that we are called to during advent.

Advent is a time of waiting, of anticipation.  Advent is a time of reflection and preparation so that we may be the most whole, best that we can be to be present to God, With Us, Emmanuel, when God comes. 

Finally, Advent is also a time of great surprise. 

This story from Ezekiel is a vision, a metaphor for the life that God brings where life appears to be completely absent, completely gone.  But this story is put into such a completely shocking image… bones knitting back together, sinews and tendons reattaching themselves, the dead coming alive… These images are shocking and disturbing because the experience of the people to the presence of God is also that surprising, that shocking, and that unexpected.  Even as we wait for Christmas with the belief that we know what the baby looks like (after all aren’t we just celebrating something that already happened a long, long time ago?), that we know what to expect, what to anticipate; the promise is there that each time God comes, and God comes again and again and again, that it will be every bit as shocking and even terrifying in its incredibleness, it’s awesomeness, its unexpectedness, as this scene from Ezekiel. 

We hear in Mary’s Magnificat that the order of the world will be flipped on its head.  We are told God “has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

 He has brought down rulers from their thrones

    but has lifted up the humble.

 He has filled the hungry with good things

    but has sent the rich away empty.

 He has helped his servant Israel,

    remembering to be merciful”

And today in Ezekiel we hear this promise again.  The dead will be raised again.  Breath will move within those who have no breath.  But what does this mean for us?  Our bones will have life again.  The unkind will act in kindness towards one another.  The unforgiving will learn how to forgive.  The unseeing will see.  The unhearing will hear.  Those who are angry will learn compassion.  Those filled with hate will learn grace.  Those who lie and gossip will have tongues only for truth and confession.  The blaming and accusing will only reflect on their own contributions to discord.  All of this and more will happen.  This is what this new breath is about.  This is what new life invites.  This is what the wait for God’s coming promises. 

We may not see it in our lifetimes.  Like Israel’s people, we may have to wait for these promises until the next generation.  But we are still called to trust that they will come.  And we are invited to be part of it as we step into our own self-reflection, our own inner work, our own inventory of our own bones: where they are dry, where they are brittle, and where they need the breath of God to bring them to life.

These are the unexpected surprises of Advent.  It starts with you.  It starts with me.  We prepare and wait, repent and step into new life together, create the unexpected miracles of new life and new relationship once again.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Gifts of Advent

 

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14

John 14:27

               We’ve been reading a lot of difficult passages lately.  Looking intensely at some of the harder and harsher words from the Old Testament.  And I feel that today’s readings are a deep blessing instead.  They are a breath of deep and fresh air.  Today as we begin Advent, we begin with this promise of something beautiful.  We begin with seeing once again the deep love of God. 

While Jeremiah is addressing a people in captivity and in exile, I want to invite you to think for a minute about how these words might apply to you, too.  While we are not literally in captivity or in exile, there are areas within each of us that are in captivity and/or in exile.  Maybe you are in captivity to anger that you are holding against someone else.  Maybe you are in captivity to fear about what is happening to a loved one, to yourself, to the country.  Maybe you are in captivity to an addiction that you just can’t shake, no matter how much you may want to, or something you have to finish, a chore, a promise, a commitment that you simply do not want to fulfill, that is holding you captive in that it prevents you from moving on, from doing what you may want to do.  Maybe you feel your body is holding you in captivity in its limitations, in the ways you may now be limited physically, or prevented by bodily issues from doing the things that you would like to be able to do. 

And exile?  Are there people in your life from whom you are estranged?  Are there relationships that you cannot reconcile?  Are there places where you feel uncomfortable, uneasy, separated, distant?  Are there places that have meant “home” to you that are no longer accessible?  Or people with whom you felt at home that you can no longer be with (because of many things, even death, that keeps us apart)?  Where are the areas within you that you have pushed out or that you cannot face?  Where are your shadow sides that you have exiled away from you?  Are there parts of yourself that you hold off, keep distant, exile?

With those images in mind, I invite you to listen again to these beautiful promises of love, these sweet and awesome promises of the future.  Close your eyes and hear these words for you again:

“I know the plans I have in mind for you, declares the Lord; they are plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future filled with hope.  When you call me and come and pray to me, I will listen to you.  When you search for me, yes, search for me with all your heart, you will find me.  I will be present for you, declares the Lord, and I will end your captivity. I will gather you …, and I will bring you home after your long exile, declares the Lord.”  

I want you to hear those words in your hearts. These are advent promises, promises of a time to come, a time of unexpected release and comfort, a time of hope, a time of reconciliation and healing, a time of peace. 

In the book The Life of Pi, Pi had been on a boat that sank with all his family and everything that he had.   He was the only human who survived on a lifeboat.  But he was on that lifeboat for a very, very long time.  It was an incredibly difficult time.  As he described it, sometimes there weren’t any fish to catch, to eat.  And sometimes the sun was way too hot and the despair was absolutely overwhelming.  When he was asked how he survived it, if it was all just miserable and awful, he said, “You reach a point where you’re at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you’re the luckiest person on earth.  Why?  Because at your feet you have a tiny … fish [to eat].” (217).  

The truth is that we can, almost always, find signs (like a fish meal when we are hungry) of God’s love, of LIFE.  And those gifts, those signs of hope and of life are promises in themselves.  They are reminders that God created you because God loves and that is God’s very nature to love you into being YOU.

In the book, Finding Chika, Mitch Albom wrote about caring for Chika who was a little girl dying of a brain tumor.  He wrote about what he learned, how he grew during that time.  One of his chapters was entitled, “Lesson Three: A sense of wonder” and he wrote, “We took you to Disneyland once, Chika.  Do you remember?  It was after the radiation treatments.  You had been wondering about Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, which they show at the start of every Disney movie.  ‘Is that real?’ you’d ask, and we’d say that it was, and someday we would take you to see it.  One night, after putting you to bed, Miss Janine and I looked at the missing patch of hair above the back of your neck.  Your forehead was perspiring.  And we said to each other, ‘What are we waiting for?’  We made the reservations.  We flew to California.  I bought tickets for a weekday, hoping for smaller crowds, and we arrived before the park even opened.  What I remember most is what you did first.  We entered through Main Street, passing souvenir shops.  The rides were up ahead, and I wondered which would make you scream ‘Can we do that one?’  Instead we passed a small pond, and a gray duck wandered out of the water.  And with Astro Orbitor to your right, Thunder Mountain to your left, and Sleeping Beauty’s Castle straight ahead, you pointed down and yelled, ‘Look!  A duck!’ And you chased after it and giggled wildly, ‘Duck!  Duck!’… With all those amusement park attractions calling, you got low to marvel at another living creature.  … Children wonder at the world.  Parents wonder at their children’s wonder.  In so doing, we are all together young.”

This is the awe of Advent, the wonder of Advent.  Does it mean everything is okay?  Of course not.  Again, that story I read you about Chika was from a child who was dying.  A very young girl (5 -6 years of age) who died of a brain tumor.  An extremely tragic experience full of pain and loss, of painful treatments and hospital stays.  But it was in the midst of that that she found joy, wonder, delight.  God’s promise for us is one of peace: a place of rest, a place of healing for our souls: a freeing from the captivities of our minds, a return from the places of exile within.  Those moments of joy, of sight, of feeling, sensing, resting in God’s presence.  These are the gifts of Advent, the promise of that new life to come, of God’s being with us in person.

But Advent does not just leave us here.  Advent also calls us to be part of the movement, part of the growing, to pass on that hope, that peace, that joy and that love to those we encounter. 

Bishop Michael Curry, in his book, Love is the Way (New York: Penguin Random House, 2020.  P 154), wrote about the ministry his congregation was doing in the “rough” neighborhoods, in the poorest areas.  The congregants made a commitment to make a difference in those neighborhoods.  They started by singing on the street corners, and they preached five minute sermons about God’s love on the street corners.  He wrote, “During the winter holidays, we shifted to Christmas caroling.  One night, as we walked the streets near the church with our flashlights, I could sense that enthusiasm was waning. Caroling on the streets isn’t like singing in church.  In a church, voices bounce off the walls with a resonance that amplifies and improves the sound.  A mouse can belt like Patti LaBelle.  But on the streets, we got no such lift.  Our voices seemed quiet and flat, lost in the air of boarded-up and derelict homes.  Still, we stuck with it, determined to share some spirit that night.  We stopped on one block near an alley and began a quiet rendition of ‘Silent Night’ even though we couldn’t see a soul.  As we neared the finish of the first verse – ‘sleep in heavenly peace’ – we were about to walk on.  And then from the darkness of the alley, we heard a response.  A voice sang out from the darkness finishing the song, ‘Sleep in heavenly pea-ace, sle-eep in heavenly peace.’  I experienced surprised elation, but also sadness. Down that alley someone was listening.  And also down that ally someone was possibly cold, possibly hungry, possibly high.  I would never know, because he didn’t show his face.  And yet, he had responded.  Thanks to that unseen neighbor, we understood that even when it didn’t seem like it, somebody was listening.  That was a beginning, and over the years, a relationship between the community and the churches in the community began to emerge and grow. 

“I came to see that night as symbolic of the same transition we were going through as an entire congregation – a reawakening toward the community outside our walls, which was leading to a reawakening of the reality of God within and without.  It was, I suspect, part of why I was brought to St. James, and it was the hardest work any of us had ever done. 

“This is a hard and necessary work, for all of us.  It’s easy to contribute money and time to ‘do good’ and help others, whether through compassionate acts of service or by joining the movement for social justice and change.  It is far tougher to maintain a humble and dedicated relationship with God and with others, especially others who are not like you.  But that kind of relationship – the I-Thou relationship – is how we create a new dynamic, where there are no saviors, but only people working together for a better future for the good of all.  Without that mutuality our good acts all too easily replicate and reinforce the status quo.  When we draw on the ‘energies of love,’ to use Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s phrase, we reconnect with God and others, and in the end, with the whole world.

“As that happens, even if episodically, I-Thou overcomes I-It, and life becomes less about egoistic ‘me’ and more about altruistic ‘we.’”

MLK said it this way, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” 

So, during this advent we are invited to rest in the peace God offers, but also to extend that peace in every interaction we have.  To step forward with courage and confidence and to invite those around us to do likewise. 

There is a beautiful Amish proverb that says, “Faith gives us the courage to face the present with confidence and the future with expectancy.”  Those are the promises of Advent.

This first Sunday in Advent we focus on hope, the  hope that comes through trust, through faith.  We are invited to find that hope within, to lean on God to be able to pull that hope to our hearts, to claim it as the promise that it is.  And then to pass it along to those we encounter.  So I want to end our sermon today with the words that Jesus spoke in the scripture we read this morning.  These words are for YOU.  As we enter this Advent season, I invite you to bring them into your heart as the promise, the hope, the Advent of a new day that they are.   As we heard today from Jeremiah:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope for the future.”  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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.  Eldest'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.