Dear People of Christ Church,
Continued Advent blessings to you! Thanks to everyone who was part of the pageant on Sunday… it was nice to see it back on Sunday morning, just as it was nice to have it in the evenings for the last few years.
At vestry on Monday night we were invited to reflect on what words tell our Advent story. I shared that, while I’m not as big of a Dr Who fan as many of you are, a line from that comes to mind—this year my Advent has been bigger on the inside. It’s been a slow unfolding all the way back to the weekend after Thanksgiving; as long as the season of Advent ever gets (next year Advent four is on December 24, so we’ll barely have three weeks of it). It has felt spacious in a way that December, with Tuesday night education and the pageant and school concerts and all of it doesn’t always lend itself to.
Advent is waiting and unfolding and preparing and paying attention. There’s often a bit of a let down by the end of it; wishing I’d waited better or contemplated harder or whatever else. This year feels different; not because I think I’ve done such an admirable job of “Adventing” so hard, but simply because I am feeling so grateful to be led forward into this mystery of God. I know it’s not going to all be perfect. I’m not going to brilliantly articulate the meaning of the incarnation in my sermon tomorrow better than I ever have. I’m not going to find some new and profound insight on what it means that God becomes human and why it matters. I’m not going to get my children and my home looking flawless for the holiday. And that’s fine! Rather than looking at my own failures this year, I’m looking at so many blessings. Thank you for being part of the journey together.
Blessings,
Sara+
Showing posts with label Advent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Advent. Show all posts
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Choosing our Pageant Stories
Dear People of Christ Church,
The Christmas Pageant returns to Sunday this week! 10am, all the sheep, goats, angels, innkeepers and magi lead us into the Christmas story. A few weeks ago I heard the cartoonist Alison Bechdel (most recently author of the truly marvelous graphic memoirs Are you My Mother and Fun Home) on the radio show The Takeaway. She was talking about the importance of stories to help us be ourselves—she said they help “organize our thinking.” Stories are what we tell ourselves to remember who we are, to know where we are going, to frame where we have been. She was talking about the post-election world: she needs the characters in her comics, like friends.
Sometimes, of course, stories can get in our way. If you’re wailing about some failure on someone else’s part or some seemingly deadly inadequacy of your own, chances are good that you have developed a narrative that has very little to do with reality. You have, perhaps, lectured yourself for being a hopeless idiot (you’re probably not completely hopeless). You have, perhaps, dismissed another person as incapable of compassion or sensitivity (they may, in fact, be able to muster just a little, once in a while). A Buddhist-influenced spiritual director I had once was always telling me, “Drop the story line” as a way of getting underneath my own judgmental feelings to help me reflect on what was really happening. When someone forgets your birthday, you get angry. It’s one thing, though, to be angry about one particular sadness and another thing to dismiss that person completely as a selfish monster who cares only about themselves and actively wants you to feel bad.
It’s human nature to create stories; we have narrative minds. That’s why it’s so important to be aware of our stories and choose them wisely. This brings me back to the Christmas pageant. Yes, a fun way to invite our kids into the center of our community. Yes, it’s a way to bring out performance and joy and creativity. It’s deeper than that, though. Seeing our own kids as Mary and Joseph and being face to face with Jesus with animals and chaos all around—that gets us into the story on a profoundly different level than just hearing the words.
The pageant smashes the whole story together—Joseph’s dream (the Gospel that’s actually assigned for Sunday) is in Matthew, which also gives us the magi. Luke has shepherds, magnificat, and no room at the inn. Joseph listens to his dreams. The innkeeper finds space. The magi bring gifts that symbolize power and kingship (gold and frankincense) but also death (myrrh for anointing a dead body). Mary sings about a God who comes to the help of those who are poor and suffering, not those who are rich and already have plenty. Any one of those stories could feed your spirit for a year, and there they all are all at once!
The Christmas story is about possibility, solidarity, joy, and love.
Definitely words I want to write my story with.
Blessings,
Sara+
The Christmas Pageant returns to Sunday this week! 10am, all the sheep, goats, angels, innkeepers and magi lead us into the Christmas story. A few weeks ago I heard the cartoonist Alison Bechdel (most recently author of the truly marvelous graphic memoirs Are you My Mother and Fun Home) on the radio show The Takeaway. She was talking about the importance of stories to help us be ourselves—she said they help “organize our thinking.” Stories are what we tell ourselves to remember who we are, to know where we are going, to frame where we have been. She was talking about the post-election world: she needs the characters in her comics, like friends.
Sometimes, of course, stories can get in our way. If you’re wailing about some failure on someone else’s part or some seemingly deadly inadequacy of your own, chances are good that you have developed a narrative that has very little to do with reality. You have, perhaps, lectured yourself for being a hopeless idiot (you’re probably not completely hopeless). You have, perhaps, dismissed another person as incapable of compassion or sensitivity (they may, in fact, be able to muster just a little, once in a while). A Buddhist-influenced spiritual director I had once was always telling me, “Drop the story line” as a way of getting underneath my own judgmental feelings to help me reflect on what was really happening. When someone forgets your birthday, you get angry. It’s one thing, though, to be angry about one particular sadness and another thing to dismiss that person completely as a selfish monster who cares only about themselves and actively wants you to feel bad.
It’s human nature to create stories; we have narrative minds. That’s why it’s so important to be aware of our stories and choose them wisely. This brings me back to the Christmas pageant. Yes, a fun way to invite our kids into the center of our community. Yes, it’s a way to bring out performance and joy and creativity. It’s deeper than that, though. Seeing our own kids as Mary and Joseph and being face to face with Jesus with animals and chaos all around—that gets us into the story on a profoundly different level than just hearing the words.
The pageant smashes the whole story together—Joseph’s dream (the Gospel that’s actually assigned for Sunday) is in Matthew, which also gives us the magi. Luke has shepherds, magnificat, and no room at the inn. Joseph listens to his dreams. The innkeeper finds space. The magi bring gifts that symbolize power and kingship (gold and frankincense) but also death (myrrh for anointing a dead body). Mary sings about a God who comes to the help of those who are poor and suffering, not those who are rich and already have plenty. Any one of those stories could feed your spirit for a year, and there they all are all at once!
The Christmas story is about possibility, solidarity, joy, and love.
Definitely words I want to write my story with.
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Justice & Bread
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, our Advent series on Biblical values continued on the topic of justice. Last week we talked about non-judgment, and next week we tackle inclusion. One of our Scripture texts was a foundational one for me in how I try to live my life: “As you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25). Those who are suffering demand our attention not as if Christ were with them, but because Christ is there. I’m all for reading Scripture awake and searching for metaphor, but this isn’t one of those times. Matthew 25 calls for more literalist Bible thumping.
Last weekend I was with our bishops and the Commission on Ministry, of which I’m a member (it’s the team that helps interview and support people for the ordination process who want to be priests or deacons). In a serendipitous turn someone forwarded me a daily Advent meditation on the spiritual dimensions of anti racist work from one of the people we spoke to, Olivia Hamilton, who’s working with the Harvard Episcopal Chaplaincy. She shares this from Anne Braden, a white southern Episcopalian who lived in the Jim Crow south and came to devote her life to ending the culture of white supremacy she grew up in.
Braden writes:
The passage from the Bible that impressed me the most deeply in my early religious training was the one from Christ’s story of the Last Judgement: ‘ for I was hungered, and ye gave me no meat, I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not…Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.’ I thought about that passage a great deal; it worried me almost constantly. And it would have been hard not to worry about it in those days, for this was the 1930s and there was hunger everywhere. The people I knew tried, I think, according to their lights to practice what Christ taught. My family did. They fed many people who were hungry. Sometimes my mother, growing weary of it, would turn away one of the beggars who came to our door, and that would cause me a sleepless night worrying for fear she was going to hell; but most generally she fed them. Especially, she and my father made sure that the Negro family who worked for us from time to time were not hungry or shelterless or naked. If they were short on money to pay the rent, my father provided the money. The family was always clothed because they got our cast off clothes after they were too faded and old for us to want them any more. But something happened to me each time I looked at the Negro girl who always inherited my clothes. Sometimes she would come to our house with her mother, wearing one of the dresses I had discarded. The dresses never fit her because she was fatter than I was. She would sit in a straight chair in our kitchen waiting for her mother, because of course she could not sit in one of our comfortable chairs in the living room. She would sit there looking uncomfortable, my old faded dress binding her at the waist and throat. And someway I knew that this was not what Jesus meant when he said ‘clothe the naked.’ I recalled that Jesus had also said, ‘therefore all things whatsoever ye would that man should do to you, do ye even so to them.’ And I knew that if I were in her place, if I had no clothes, I would not want the old abandoned dresses of a person who would not even invite me to come into her living room to sit down. And I could not talk to her because I felt ashamed. And as I watched her, I would feel a binding sensation around my own throat. And I would feel to see if my own dress was too tight. But of course it was not. My clothes were always well-cut and perfectly fitted. Instead there was a small straightjacket around my soul. (Anne Braden, The Wall Between, 1958)
Braden goes on to talk about how she began to understand how the racism she lived in was damaging to those who perpetuated it as well as to those who experienced the more severe oppression. “Racial bars built walls…around the white people as well, cramping their spirits and causing them to grow in distorted shapes.” In our conversation about Matthew 25, we talked about the shame of living in plenty when others are suffering; the Gospel tells us that meeting the needs of others is for their material need, but it’s also for our own souls. Or, as a quote from Nicolai Berdyaev has it that José Borrás shared with me a number of years ago has it, “Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.”
Where are you finding bread of all kinds these days?
Who’s sharing with you, and who are you sharing with?
Blessings,
Sara+
This week, our Advent series on Biblical values continued on the topic of justice. Last week we talked about non-judgment, and next week we tackle inclusion. One of our Scripture texts was a foundational one for me in how I try to live my life: “As you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25). Those who are suffering demand our attention not as if Christ were with them, but because Christ is there. I’m all for reading Scripture awake and searching for metaphor, but this isn’t one of those times. Matthew 25 calls for more literalist Bible thumping.
Last weekend I was with our bishops and the Commission on Ministry, of which I’m a member (it’s the team that helps interview and support people for the ordination process who want to be priests or deacons). In a serendipitous turn someone forwarded me a daily Advent meditation on the spiritual dimensions of anti racist work from one of the people we spoke to, Olivia Hamilton, who’s working with the Harvard Episcopal Chaplaincy. She shares this from Anne Braden, a white southern Episcopalian who lived in the Jim Crow south and came to devote her life to ending the culture of white supremacy she grew up in.
Braden writes:
The passage from the Bible that impressed me the most deeply in my early religious training was the one from Christ’s story of the Last Judgement: ‘ for I was hungered, and ye gave me no meat, I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not…Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.’ I thought about that passage a great deal; it worried me almost constantly. And it would have been hard not to worry about it in those days, for this was the 1930s and there was hunger everywhere. The people I knew tried, I think, according to their lights to practice what Christ taught. My family did. They fed many people who were hungry. Sometimes my mother, growing weary of it, would turn away one of the beggars who came to our door, and that would cause me a sleepless night worrying for fear she was going to hell; but most generally she fed them. Especially, she and my father made sure that the Negro family who worked for us from time to time were not hungry or shelterless or naked. If they were short on money to pay the rent, my father provided the money. The family was always clothed because they got our cast off clothes after they were too faded and old for us to want them any more. But something happened to me each time I looked at the Negro girl who always inherited my clothes. Sometimes she would come to our house with her mother, wearing one of the dresses I had discarded. The dresses never fit her because she was fatter than I was. She would sit in a straight chair in our kitchen waiting for her mother, because of course she could not sit in one of our comfortable chairs in the living room. She would sit there looking uncomfortable, my old faded dress binding her at the waist and throat. And someway I knew that this was not what Jesus meant when he said ‘clothe the naked.’ I recalled that Jesus had also said, ‘therefore all things whatsoever ye would that man should do to you, do ye even so to them.’ And I knew that if I were in her place, if I had no clothes, I would not want the old abandoned dresses of a person who would not even invite me to come into her living room to sit down. And I could not talk to her because I felt ashamed. And as I watched her, I would feel a binding sensation around my own throat. And I would feel to see if my own dress was too tight. But of course it was not. My clothes were always well-cut and perfectly fitted. Instead there was a small straightjacket around my soul. (Anne Braden, The Wall Between, 1958)
Braden goes on to talk about how she began to understand how the racism she lived in was damaging to those who perpetuated it as well as to those who experienced the more severe oppression. “Racial bars built walls…around the white people as well, cramping their spirits and causing them to grow in distorted shapes.” In our conversation about Matthew 25, we talked about the shame of living in plenty when others are suffering; the Gospel tells us that meeting the needs of others is for their material need, but it’s also for our own souls. Or, as a quote from Nicolai Berdyaev has it that José Borrás shared with me a number of years ago has it, “Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.”
Where are you finding bread of all kinds these days?
Who’s sharing with you, and who are you sharing with?
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, December 1, 2016
The Three Advents
Dear People of Christ Church,
Continued Advent blessings!
Every year we come to this season, and every year we need the Advent call to contemplation, wakefulness, and hope like the desert needs water. This year the Advent invitation to hope, in particular seems very timely. This is the one thing we are called to do in this season: to hope in preparation for the birth of Jesus, to hope in preparation for God’s presence in the world, and to hope for God’s presence in our own lives. One of my favorite explorations of Advent comes from the medieval monk Bernard of Clairvaux. He says there are actually three Advents. The first one is the one we know: the birth of God in the person of Jesus Christ, God taking on our human flesh. We spend these days counting down, lighting candles and eating chocolates, in preparation to be ready. The third Advent is the coming again of Christ, at the end of time: as we say in the Eucharistic prayer, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” Those are visible, in-the-world Advents. But there’s an Advent that comes in between those two in our chronological time. The second Advent is is the Advent of Christ every day: in our hearts and in our world. God invites us to cultivate a space for Jesus every day, not just Christmas. Bernard tells us: “If you wish to meet God, go as far as your own heart.” Thomas Merton was a great interpreter of Bernard: he emphasizes that part of how we connect to this second Advent is in humility, to accept that we must receive all from Christ and not lean on our own power or ego.
One of the fruits of this kind of humble living, I think, is non-judgment. That’s one of the lesser-heard Biblical values we’re looking at in our Advent series. This week we read the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery in the Gospel of John. Trying to whip Jesus into their frenzy of condemnation, the scribes and Pharisees ask him what they should do to her. But he ignores them; writing in the sand he stays apart, silent. When they push him, he replies: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” One by one they leave, and she’s alone. I chose that particular story because that line is so memorable, but as we read it together I was most moved by Jesus’ solidarity with her. I pictured the woman, afraid for her life, fearful that there would be no one to take her part. She’s alone; the other adulterous participant is not named, and not anywhere present. She has no recourse for justice. Jesus takes her side. Not only will he not condemn, he does so in the face of significant pressure to do so.
This Advent, here’s my wish list: to live in hope with that woman, that Jesus might come to my side. To live in trust, with Thomas Merton, that God will give me the grace to embody Jesus’ solidarity in this fragile world. To find time for silence, to find God in my heart in today’s Advent, as well as tomorrow’s.
Blessings,
Sara+
Continued Advent blessings!
Every year we come to this season, and every year we need the Advent call to contemplation, wakefulness, and hope like the desert needs water. This year the Advent invitation to hope, in particular seems very timely. This is the one thing we are called to do in this season: to hope in preparation for the birth of Jesus, to hope in preparation for God’s presence in the world, and to hope for God’s presence in our own lives. One of my favorite explorations of Advent comes from the medieval monk Bernard of Clairvaux. He says there are actually three Advents. The first one is the one we know: the birth of God in the person of Jesus Christ, God taking on our human flesh. We spend these days counting down, lighting candles and eating chocolates, in preparation to be ready. The third Advent is the coming again of Christ, at the end of time: as we say in the Eucharistic prayer, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” Those are visible, in-the-world Advents. But there’s an Advent that comes in between those two in our chronological time. The second Advent is is the Advent of Christ every day: in our hearts and in our world. God invites us to cultivate a space for Jesus every day, not just Christmas. Bernard tells us: “If you wish to meet God, go as far as your own heart.” Thomas Merton was a great interpreter of Bernard: he emphasizes that part of how we connect to this second Advent is in humility, to accept that we must receive all from Christ and not lean on our own power or ego.
One of the fruits of this kind of humble living, I think, is non-judgment. That’s one of the lesser-heard Biblical values we’re looking at in our Advent series. This week we read the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery in the Gospel of John. Trying to whip Jesus into their frenzy of condemnation, the scribes and Pharisees ask him what they should do to her. But he ignores them; writing in the sand he stays apart, silent. When they push him, he replies: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” One by one they leave, and she’s alone. I chose that particular story because that line is so memorable, but as we read it together I was most moved by Jesus’ solidarity with her. I pictured the woman, afraid for her life, fearful that there would be no one to take her part. She’s alone; the other adulterous participant is not named, and not anywhere present. She has no recourse for justice. Jesus takes her side. Not only will he not condemn, he does so in the face of significant pressure to do so.
This Advent, here’s my wish list: to live in hope with that woman, that Jesus might come to my side. To live in trust, with Thomas Merton, that God will give me the grace to embody Jesus’ solidarity in this fragile world. To find time for silence, to find God in my heart in today’s Advent, as well as tomorrow’s.
Blessings,
Sara+
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Now, Take a Deep Breath
Dear People of Christ Church,
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Tomorrow is the end of this long Advent journey, with John the Baptist and Mary and all the rest. From Alicia’s Children’s sermon about how God makes straight the crooked places and makes the mountain a plain, to Bishop Alan’s time with us reminding us that “bedlam” and “Bethlehem” have a lot in common, we have traveled some distance.
We will, I imagine, never come to Christmas Eve after the journey of Advent and find ourselves completely ready. Whether it’s the unsent Christmas cards or the charity requests piling up, or the present list that’s not been written, much less checked twice…there is often so more to do. And yet, and yet, Christmas comes anyway. We spend all of this time with John the Baptist being told to “prepare the way” that we forget that God can travel on the bumpiest of roads. That’s what God does. Neither our negligence nor our faithfulness will speed or delay the unfolding of God’s time.
So today, rather than continue with more words, I invite you instead to take a breath. (If you want words, there will be a Christmas editorial from me in the Waltham News Tribune tomorrow, based on this last week’s message about our many Gospel stories). Now, take a deep breath. Imagine that God has already received every offering you have to give—your kindness to God’s people, your attention to the “least and lost,” your worries, your fear. Because when given to God, even your fear is a gift—God so wants to be able to care for you, and came to be born with us for this.
Blessings,
Sara+
P.S. I’m experimenting with putting sermons online—if you missed last week, it’s on Soundcloud. Hopefully Christmas Eve will go up tomorrow night, too!
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Tomorrow is the end of this long Advent journey, with John the Baptist and Mary and all the rest. From Alicia’s Children’s sermon about how God makes straight the crooked places and makes the mountain a plain, to Bishop Alan’s time with us reminding us that “bedlam” and “Bethlehem” have a lot in common, we have traveled some distance.
We will, I imagine, never come to Christmas Eve after the journey of Advent and find ourselves completely ready. Whether it’s the unsent Christmas cards or the charity requests piling up, or the present list that’s not been written, much less checked twice…there is often so more to do. And yet, and yet, Christmas comes anyway. We spend all of this time with John the Baptist being told to “prepare the way” that we forget that God can travel on the bumpiest of roads. That’s what God does. Neither our negligence nor our faithfulness will speed or delay the unfolding of God’s time.
So today, rather than continue with more words, I invite you instead to take a breath. (If you want words, there will be a Christmas editorial from me in the Waltham News Tribune tomorrow, based on this last week’s message about our many Gospel stories). Now, take a deep breath. Imagine that God has already received every offering you have to give—your kindness to God’s people, your attention to the “least and lost,” your worries, your fear. Because when given to God, even your fear is a gift—God so wants to be able to care for you, and came to be born with us for this.
Blessings,
Sara+
P.S. I’m experimenting with putting sermons online—if you missed last week, it’s on Soundcloud. Hopefully Christmas Eve will go up tomorrow night, too!
Thursday, December 17, 2015
New Visitations
Dear People of Christ Church,
For this year’s Advent series, we tried something new, an intergenerational Bible Study. From week to week, we looked at the different stories of the origins of Jesus Christ—the traditional nativity story in Luke, with the manger and the shepherds, the cosmic Christ through whom the world came to be as described so poetically in the Gospel of John, the beginning-that-is-no-beginning offered by Mark, who just launches into Jesus’ ministry with not a word about where Jesus came from. And, of course, Matthew, who gives us Joseph’s dream and the visitation of the Magi.
Each Gospel is written from a different perspective, and each one teaches us something different about who Jesus is and what God desires for us. Each time we met for our Advent conversations, we asked the question: what if this were the only story we had? What if we had magi, and no shepherds? What if we had the manger, but no cosmic poetry?
The fact is, we need all of these stories. We need them all because we need to spend some time with different emphases—we need the cosmic Christ to remind us of God’s intimacy with the world, always and from the beginning. We need the birth of a messiah heralded by outcast and dirty shepherds, Mary a pregnant teenager with no place to stay, to remind us that God always goes to the places of powerlessness. But we also need Matthew, to tell us that Jesus is a King in the line of David, that Jesus comes in “majesty and awe,” too. The kings of this world aren’t the only ones with gold and frankincense. We need the jolt of imagining God in a manger, and the familiarity of imagining the kings visiting Mary in an ordinary house.
God speaks to us in many different ways. Whether Jesus is born indoors or out of doors, or whether the Gospel gives a story of his birth or not, the wisdom of our tradition has invited us into all of those different realities. God’s truth, even within Christian teaching, is varied. And how much more do we need to remember that as we, with Mary, “ponder in our hearts” God’s working in the world in other faiths.
God speaks however God will, whenever God will. God speaks shepherd as well as king. God speaks more languages than we can know.
Blessings,
Sara+
For this year’s Advent series, we tried something new, an intergenerational Bible Study. From week to week, we looked at the different stories of the origins of Jesus Christ—the traditional nativity story in Luke, with the manger and the shepherds, the cosmic Christ through whom the world came to be as described so poetically in the Gospel of John, the beginning-that-is-no-beginning offered by Mark, who just launches into Jesus’ ministry with not a word about where Jesus came from. And, of course, Matthew, who gives us Joseph’s dream and the visitation of the Magi.
Each Gospel is written from a different perspective, and each one teaches us something different about who Jesus is and what God desires for us. Each time we met for our Advent conversations, we asked the question: what if this were the only story we had? What if we had magi, and no shepherds? What if we had the manger, but no cosmic poetry?
The fact is, we need all of these stories. We need them all because we need to spend some time with different emphases—we need the cosmic Christ to remind us of God’s intimacy with the world, always and from the beginning. We need the birth of a messiah heralded by outcast and dirty shepherds, Mary a pregnant teenager with no place to stay, to remind us that God always goes to the places of powerlessness. But we also need Matthew, to tell us that Jesus is a King in the line of David, that Jesus comes in “majesty and awe,” too. The kings of this world aren’t the only ones with gold and frankincense. We need the jolt of imagining God in a manger, and the familiarity of imagining the kings visiting Mary in an ordinary house.
God speaks to us in many different ways. Whether Jesus is born indoors or out of doors, or whether the Gospel gives a story of his birth or not, the wisdom of our tradition has invited us into all of those different realities. God’s truth, even within Christian teaching, is varied. And how much more do we need to remember that as we, with Mary, “ponder in our hearts” God’s working in the world in other faiths.
God speaks however God will, whenever God will. God speaks shepherd as well as king. God speaks more languages than we can know.
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, December 10, 2015
The Light Shines in the Darkness
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week I’m reeling a little from the horrifying rhetoric coming out of certain corners of Christianity and American politics. Whether Jerry Falwell, Jr. exhorting the students of Liberty University to carry guns to “end those Muslims before they walked in and killed us” or Donald Trump wanting to bar Muslims from entering the United States, it seems like whatever level of “too far” I think I’ve heard one week, the next week it goes further.
That’s not my Christianity and not my country. As Shane Claiborne pointed out in a response to Falwell, Jesus carried a cross, not a weapon. When Peter moved to defend him from the Romans and cut the solider’s ear off, Jesus said no. Always, always, the way of Christ is the way of non-violence. I don’t pretend to always live as Jesus invited us, but I hope to recognize it when I see it in others, and hope that I turn away from vengeance when I find it in myself. The power of peace and love is what makes resurrection happen, the power of God in Jesus and for us. We are called to repent, to turn away, from the violent logic of the world that says that you just need to be faster with your own gun before someone else comes at you with theirs.
As Jerry Falwell, Jr. demonstrated last week (as have any number of domestic terrorists who call themselves Christian), Christianity as a whole, not just individuals, has need of repentance and conversion. Just as peace-seeking Muslims don’t recognize their faith in ISIS/Daesh, I don’t recognize my Jesus in Falwell, and I certainly don’t recognize my faith in those who would exclude or promote violence against Muslims. Whether the Crusades, or the Inquisition, or violence perpetrated against Native Americans, there are many examples when our faith, too, has failed to live up to the invitation of Jesus to love.
Again and again, I keep coming back to that reading we hear as part of the first Sunday after Christmas—“the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” I need to keep telling myself this. It is too dark otherwise not to keep lifting up the light. I have to remember that the violence of anti-Muslim hatred—even when perpetrated by those who call themselves Christian—will not win.
The darkness now, though, is very dark. I read a facebook post from a Muslim activist, Sofia Ali-Khan, who talks about how the rhetoric is no longer ignore-able. She invites allies to check in with the Muslims they know, to learn, to stand in solidarity. The causes of big political hatred can seem beyond us, but the reality is that hatred is transmitted person to person, and the place where hearts are changed is from person to person. That could be a gentle “Well, no, all Muslims don’t believe in terrorism” when a friend seems to imply otherwise, to a quiet smile at a woman in a head scarf at the grocery store. These are not earth shattering gestures, but they hold up light in a terribly dark time.
That’s what’s at stake at Christmas—the light coming to be born in this darkest time of the year (literally as well as metaphorically). We are working to make a world for that light to shine as well as looking for ways to allow that light to shine in our own hearts, in quiet and peace.
What does that look like for you these days?
Blessings,
Sara+
This week I’m reeling a little from the horrifying rhetoric coming out of certain corners of Christianity and American politics. Whether Jerry Falwell, Jr. exhorting the students of Liberty University to carry guns to “end those Muslims before they walked in and killed us” or Donald Trump wanting to bar Muslims from entering the United States, it seems like whatever level of “too far” I think I’ve heard one week, the next week it goes further.
That’s not my Christianity and not my country. As Shane Claiborne pointed out in a response to Falwell, Jesus carried a cross, not a weapon. When Peter moved to defend him from the Romans and cut the solider’s ear off, Jesus said no. Always, always, the way of Christ is the way of non-violence. I don’t pretend to always live as Jesus invited us, but I hope to recognize it when I see it in others, and hope that I turn away from vengeance when I find it in myself. The power of peace and love is what makes resurrection happen, the power of God in Jesus and for us. We are called to repent, to turn away, from the violent logic of the world that says that you just need to be faster with your own gun before someone else comes at you with theirs.
As Jerry Falwell, Jr. demonstrated last week (as have any number of domestic terrorists who call themselves Christian), Christianity as a whole, not just individuals, has need of repentance and conversion. Just as peace-seeking Muslims don’t recognize their faith in ISIS/Daesh, I don’t recognize my Jesus in Falwell, and I certainly don’t recognize my faith in those who would exclude or promote violence against Muslims. Whether the Crusades, or the Inquisition, or violence perpetrated against Native Americans, there are many examples when our faith, too, has failed to live up to the invitation of Jesus to love.
Again and again, I keep coming back to that reading we hear as part of the first Sunday after Christmas—“the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” I need to keep telling myself this. It is too dark otherwise not to keep lifting up the light. I have to remember that the violence of anti-Muslim hatred—even when perpetrated by those who call themselves Christian—will not win.
The darkness now, though, is very dark. I read a facebook post from a Muslim activist, Sofia Ali-Khan, who talks about how the rhetoric is no longer ignore-able. She invites allies to check in with the Muslims they know, to learn, to stand in solidarity. The causes of big political hatred can seem beyond us, but the reality is that hatred is transmitted person to person, and the place where hearts are changed is from person to person. That could be a gentle “Well, no, all Muslims don’t believe in terrorism” when a friend seems to imply otherwise, to a quiet smile at a woman in a head scarf at the grocery store. These are not earth shattering gestures, but they hold up light in a terribly dark time.
That’s what’s at stake at Christmas—the light coming to be born in this darkest time of the year (literally as well as metaphorically). We are working to make a world for that light to shine as well as looking for ways to allow that light to shine in our own hearts, in quiet and peace.
What does that look like for you these days?
Blessings,
Sara+
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
The Sacrament of Stillness
This week, I’m passing on a bit from Walter Brueggeman, whose book I read this week while home on a sick day: Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now. I’ve written a lot in this space about feeling impatient about social justice and the Advent of Christ’s restoration of all things—I’ll try to be faithful to that holy impatience. Unholy impatience, however, is the kind I fall into more often. Short tempered with my kids when they take what seems like EIGHT YEARS to brush their teeth. Impatient in traffic, trying to avoid the distracting allure of the little red notifying sign that I have a Facebook message from someone. These kinds of impatiences are habits of thought absorbed in our technological world, when it feels like anything worth having must be eligible for overnight shipping, and anything worth doing must be able to be finished in an afternoon.
Here’s what Brueggeman says about that.
The divine rest on the seventh day of creation has made clear:
a. that Yahweh is not a workaholic
b. that Yahweh is not anxious about the full function of creation and
c. that the well-being of creation does not depend on endless work (6).
Hear that? Creation doesn’t depend on your constant work. It doesn’t even depend on God’s constant work. Sabbath, Brueggeman says, is as necessary to God as it is to us—and rather archly reminds us that God did not just “check in” on creation on God’s day off. God knew it would be fine.
Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath. Rest, faithfulness, joy.
I feel like I’ve been writing and preaching grief and tragedy for too many weeks, and the sin of our world is still glaring, still there. But we will not be made more compassionate or more fruitful in our work in refusing to trust God. I’ve been so moved by all the stories of protest that have come out recently—high school students all over Boston leaving their classrooms, Harvard Medical School students in their white jackets leaving their lecture halls. To cease to operate in the usual economy of accomplishment and “business as usual” seems to me a sacramental response. The holy is revealed in the ordinary.
There is often a complaint that protest actions don’t directly impact the issues the protestors want changed. Blocking a highway entrance does nothing against police violence. Laying down on the street does nothing directly to end the racism that leaves black children more likely to be expelled from school than their white peers. 9 years of the Waltham peace vigil (see below), has not ended any wars. Those critiques may be compelling, but both racial injustice and war politics are so woven into our judicial and economic system and into our very habits of mind that there is no simple chain of cause and effect, anywhere. The critique just doesn’t fit.
Justice comes in God’s time, with all of us needing to pray and hope and work and, yes, rest. We already know the end of the story. Jesus was born among us. God, in our midst. God just came to be with us. The birth of a holy child has no apparent causal relationship to the end of sin and suffering. Still in one week at the manger we will adore him, still we have confidence that the child, Emmanu-el, is God with us. Still, that light will shine.
Blessings,
Sara+
Here’s what Brueggeman says about that.
The divine rest on the seventh day of creation has made clear:
a. that Yahweh is not a workaholic
b. that Yahweh is not anxious about the full function of creation and
c. that the well-being of creation does not depend on endless work (6).
Hear that? Creation doesn’t depend on your constant work. It doesn’t even depend on God’s constant work. Sabbath, Brueggeman says, is as necessary to God as it is to us—and rather archly reminds us that God did not just “check in” on creation on God’s day off. God knew it would be fine.
Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath. Rest, faithfulness, joy.
I feel like I’ve been writing and preaching grief and tragedy for too many weeks, and the sin of our world is still glaring, still there. But we will not be made more compassionate or more fruitful in our work in refusing to trust God. I’ve been so moved by all the stories of protest that have come out recently—high school students all over Boston leaving their classrooms, Harvard Medical School students in their white jackets leaving their lecture halls. To cease to operate in the usual economy of accomplishment and “business as usual” seems to me a sacramental response. The holy is revealed in the ordinary.
There is often a complaint that protest actions don’t directly impact the issues the protestors want changed. Blocking a highway entrance does nothing against police violence. Laying down on the street does nothing directly to end the racism that leaves black children more likely to be expelled from school than their white peers. 9 years of the Waltham peace vigil (see below), has not ended any wars. Those critiques may be compelling, but both racial injustice and war politics are so woven into our judicial and economic system and into our very habits of mind that there is no simple chain of cause and effect, anywhere. The critique just doesn’t fit.
Justice comes in God’s time, with all of us needing to pray and hope and work and, yes, rest. We already know the end of the story. Jesus was born among us. God, in our midst. God just came to be with us. The birth of a holy child has no apparent causal relationship to the end of sin and suffering. Still in one week at the manger we will adore him, still we have confidence that the child, Emmanu-el, is God with us. Still, that light will shine.
Blessings,
Sara+
Friday, December 5, 2014
Advent Waiting for (Truly) All Lives to Matter
Dear People of Christ Church,
As I mentioned in my sermon on Sunday, this week I continue to feel very “Adventy”—longing, hoping for the restoration of all things in Christ. Our reading from Isaiah on Sunday begged for the intervention of God—“Oh, that you would tear down the heavens and come down!”—the prophet speaks for a people lamenting that even their most righteous deeds are not enough.
There are no easy answers. It’s easy to say “Don’t be racist,” but harder to change the fact that our society still struggles with the legacy of years of inequality and injustice, structures of poverty and prejudice that entrap generation after generation. Yesterday, again, another grand jury chose not to indict another police officer for killing an unarmed black man. Eric Garner’s death was ruled as a homicide, and still, no indictment. As Garner said he couldn’t breathe, did the man choking him realize he was taking a life with his own hands? That one of God’s own beloved children was dying? Did he realize his own belovedness at the time? Did he remember he was created for more than fear?
The reason these grand jury cases are so troubling is that the message is that there is no chance—no chance—to ask if something illegal happened. The job of a grand jury is not to decide whether someone is guilty or innocent; its job is to decide whether there’s a question. The protest phrase “Black Lives Matter” is not to contradict the sentiment that all lives matter; it’s to contradict the idea that Michael Brown’s and Eric Garner’s (and so many others’) lives don’t. And that’s the message being sent here. In his testimony Darren Wilson described Michael Brown as looking like “a demon.” Wilson was afraid and felt threatened, but this comment exposes the attitude that the black man in front of Wilson did not seem human. That’s not a reasoned, personal decision based on evidence; that’s a response absorbed by living in a world in which certain lives may not quite be worthy. It’s sin, personal as well as communal.
This goes far beyond the question of police training or practice. As I said on Sunday when we dedicated altar linens in Jim Hewitt’s memory, there are great people who are police officers. And it’s not a zero sum—for one doesn’t mean against another. This is about all of us. When we don’t talk about race and racism, that’s on all of us. When we pretend that everyone gets a fair chance in America, that’s on all of us. When we don’t see our brothers and sisters of all races, economic circumstances, and nationalities as worthy of protection—that’s on all of us. We grow up in a society torn by racism—that’s not our choice. But it is our choice to acknowledge racism and its impact on us—or not.
In my sermon on Sunday I talked about waiting for Jesus. Waiting for reconciliation, waiting for justice. This Advent waiting isn’t passive—it’s the kind of waiting, Mark Allen Powell says, that people in love do. Edge of your seat, heart in your mouth, waiting, longing for the one you love to come. That’s the waiting we’re called to in Advent—to wait for Christ as though we could see him coming already. And this waiting for the one we love is about loving those Jesus loves. The imprisoned, the imperfect, the riotous, the weeping. It’s love in action, love in protest, love in reality. It’s love that has the power of God to confront injustice, to know that all of us are created by one God who loves us, a God who will accompany us in difficult conversation and forgive us when we fail.
Blessings,
Sara+
++
Wondering what you can do to remember that all lives matter? Check out the Enough is Enough Rally planned at Boston Common tonight at 7pm for the Garner family; stop by the Immigrant Experience potluck that WATCH is hosting at 6:30 (at First Parish); give for gift cards for GLBT teens for our Christmas Outreach. Next week, think about joining our bishop and diocese at the vigil for an end to gun violence on the anniversary of the Newtown School Shooting. There is far to go, and much love to give.
For some fascinating research on the science of prejudice, see this essay on Bill Moyers; for an opportunity to explore your own biases, take the “Implicit Association” Test (there are quizzes both for gender and race).
As I mentioned in my sermon on Sunday, this week I continue to feel very “Adventy”—longing, hoping for the restoration of all things in Christ. Our reading from Isaiah on Sunday begged for the intervention of God—“Oh, that you would tear down the heavens and come down!”—the prophet speaks for a people lamenting that even their most righteous deeds are not enough.
There are no easy answers. It’s easy to say “Don’t be racist,” but harder to change the fact that our society still struggles with the legacy of years of inequality and injustice, structures of poverty and prejudice that entrap generation after generation. Yesterday, again, another grand jury chose not to indict another police officer for killing an unarmed black man. Eric Garner’s death was ruled as a homicide, and still, no indictment. As Garner said he couldn’t breathe, did the man choking him realize he was taking a life with his own hands? That one of God’s own beloved children was dying? Did he realize his own belovedness at the time? Did he remember he was created for more than fear?
The reason these grand jury cases are so troubling is that the message is that there is no chance—no chance—to ask if something illegal happened. The job of a grand jury is not to decide whether someone is guilty or innocent; its job is to decide whether there’s a question. The protest phrase “Black Lives Matter” is not to contradict the sentiment that all lives matter; it’s to contradict the idea that Michael Brown’s and Eric Garner’s (and so many others’) lives don’t. And that’s the message being sent here. In his testimony Darren Wilson described Michael Brown as looking like “a demon.” Wilson was afraid and felt threatened, but this comment exposes the attitude that the black man in front of Wilson did not seem human. That’s not a reasoned, personal decision based on evidence; that’s a response absorbed by living in a world in which certain lives may not quite be worthy. It’s sin, personal as well as communal.
This goes far beyond the question of police training or practice. As I said on Sunday when we dedicated altar linens in Jim Hewitt’s memory, there are great people who are police officers. And it’s not a zero sum—for one doesn’t mean against another. This is about all of us. When we don’t talk about race and racism, that’s on all of us. When we pretend that everyone gets a fair chance in America, that’s on all of us. When we don’t see our brothers and sisters of all races, economic circumstances, and nationalities as worthy of protection—that’s on all of us. We grow up in a society torn by racism—that’s not our choice. But it is our choice to acknowledge racism and its impact on us—or not.
In my sermon on Sunday I talked about waiting for Jesus. Waiting for reconciliation, waiting for justice. This Advent waiting isn’t passive—it’s the kind of waiting, Mark Allen Powell says, that people in love do. Edge of your seat, heart in your mouth, waiting, longing for the one you love to come. That’s the waiting we’re called to in Advent—to wait for Christ as though we could see him coming already. And this waiting for the one we love is about loving those Jesus loves. The imprisoned, the imperfect, the riotous, the weeping. It’s love in action, love in protest, love in reality. It’s love that has the power of God to confront injustice, to know that all of us are created by one God who loves us, a God who will accompany us in difficult conversation and forgive us when we fail.
Blessings,
Sara+
++
Wondering what you can do to remember that all lives matter? Check out the Enough is Enough Rally planned at Boston Common tonight at 7pm for the Garner family; stop by the Immigrant Experience potluck that WATCH is hosting at 6:30 (at First Parish); give for gift cards for GLBT teens for our Christmas Outreach. Next week, think about joining our bishop and diocese at the vigil for an end to gun violence on the anniversary of the Newtown School Shooting. There is far to go, and much love to give.
For some fascinating research on the science of prejudice, see this essay on Bill Moyers; for an opportunity to explore your own biases, take the “Implicit Association” Test (there are quizzes both for gender and race).
Thursday, December 12, 2013
God’s time, our time
Dec. 12, 2013
Dear People of Christ Church,
Christmas is in less than two weeks, but it seems like Advent just started; it's a little unsettling to have gone from a late Thanksgiving and into a short Advent; it never seems like there's enough time. Of course, it never seems like there's enough time: never, ever, ever.
The English language is kind of vague when it comes to the use of that word, "time"-it can be both mundane sequence and transcendent eternity, but it often has a very literal connotation. "Time" speaks to things that can be numbered and analyzed, but that says nothing about the importance of what has happened or the unfolding of purpose or desire. Greek does a little better; it has both a word for the sense of time-sequence as well as a word for the depth of time, of the nearing of the right time. Chronos is chronology, of one event after another, but kairos is the unfolding of God's time. It's when the planets align and the season is right.
There are 12 days until Christmas (You probably know those "Twelve Days of Christmas for partridges and pear trees are the days between the holiday itself and Epiphany). You may have a lot to do or you may have not enough to do-the seasons of life can be feast or famine. Even though the whole point of the church year is to do some of this work, Advent in particular invites us to try to peer inside time, to look down into the depth of each moment into the transcendent present.
Advent is about waiting; there's chronos in waiting for those days to tick down bite by chocolate Advent calendar bite. On a different level, though, Advent is also a pattern for our whole lives, of watching and waiting for the coming of Christ and the big reconciling of the world. But we also watch for the tiny Advents and Christmases of our daily lives: the birth of a child, the death of a parent, the deep transitions and movements and shifts that make us who we are. It doesn't always have to be BIG, like we say in the Advent communion prayer, "Christ coming again to restore the world." Advent watchful waiting is being open to what the kairos is of the present moment, however slight the movements may be. Christ will restore the world in a big way at the end of time, but Christ is also moving to restore the world in our lives in smaller ways, too.
Kairos treats each moment as having the potential to be a revelation of God's presence because it implicitly acknowledges that our lives are in God's hands. It's not about what we accomplish or where we have to be next. It's about what's happening now, listening to hear what God is doing now. On the first Sunday of Advent, we read Romans 13:11: "Besides this, you know what time (kairos) it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near." The day is near: what do you pray is coming in the right time, the kairos brush with eternity that could come at any moment? What is this season of your life offering you in God's time?
Blessings,
Sara+
Dear People of Christ Church,
Christmas is in less than two weeks, but it seems like Advent just started; it's a little unsettling to have gone from a late Thanksgiving and into a short Advent; it never seems like there's enough time. Of course, it never seems like there's enough time: never, ever, ever.
The English language is kind of vague when it comes to the use of that word, "time"-it can be both mundane sequence and transcendent eternity, but it often has a very literal connotation. "Time" speaks to things that can be numbered and analyzed, but that says nothing about the importance of what has happened or the unfolding of purpose or desire. Greek does a little better; it has both a word for the sense of time-sequence as well as a word for the depth of time, of the nearing of the right time. Chronos is chronology, of one event after another, but kairos is the unfolding of God's time. It's when the planets align and the season is right.
There are 12 days until Christmas (You probably know those "Twelve Days of Christmas for partridges and pear trees are the days between the holiday itself and Epiphany). You may have a lot to do or you may have not enough to do-the seasons of life can be feast or famine. Even though the whole point of the church year is to do some of this work, Advent in particular invites us to try to peer inside time, to look down into the depth of each moment into the transcendent present.
Advent is about waiting; there's chronos in waiting for those days to tick down bite by chocolate Advent calendar bite. On a different level, though, Advent is also a pattern for our whole lives, of watching and waiting for the coming of Christ and the big reconciling of the world. But we also watch for the tiny Advents and Christmases of our daily lives: the birth of a child, the death of a parent, the deep transitions and movements and shifts that make us who we are. It doesn't always have to be BIG, like we say in the Advent communion prayer, "Christ coming again to restore the world." Advent watchful waiting is being open to what the kairos is of the present moment, however slight the movements may be. Christ will restore the world in a big way at the end of time, but Christ is also moving to restore the world in our lives in smaller ways, too.
Kairos treats each moment as having the potential to be a revelation of God's presence because it implicitly acknowledges that our lives are in God's hands. It's not about what we accomplish or where we have to be next. It's about what's happening now, listening to hear what God is doing now. On the first Sunday of Advent, we read Romans 13:11: "Besides this, you know what time (kairos) it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near." The day is near: what do you pray is coming in the right time, the kairos brush with eternity that could come at any moment? What is this season of your life offering you in God's time?
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Grace, penitence, and the Elf on the shelf
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, my facebook feed has been roughly divided evenly among two hot topics in church geekery: pronouncements on the Elf on a Shelf and pronouncements on the eternal war between blue and purple for Advent colors. You will be forgiven if you did not realize these debates were a thing.
As Henry pointed out in church on Sunday when I asked what was different and he exclaimed, "You should be wearing green!" you've probably noticed that the colors have changed for church. Advent is purple, after such a long season of green since Pentecost last June it's no wonder Henry thought it was Just Wrong. He's not the only one who would say that, though, as the partisans in the Blue vs Purple war are all aflutter. Remember what other season is purple? LENT! Do you immediately think of Lent's solemnity and penitence when you think about Advent? You probably don't. Enter: blue. The tradition of using blue for Advent is a medieval tradition that goes back to a knot of ritual practices from the Salisbury Cathedral in the eleventh century that were distinctly English as opposed to Roman. They were Anglican before Anglicanism was cool but also still really "Catholic," pre Reformation as it was. And so in the late nineteenth/ early twentieth century enjoyed quite a revival, today revealing itself in the use of "Sarum blue" in Advent.
The idea with blue is that it visually shifts the emphasis to expectation, not penitence; Lent is when we thing about amending our lives, not Advent. It reminds us of Mary, too. So why don't we use blue at Christ Church? Because in defining Advent against a too-sin-focused Lent, we miss the boat on both Advent and Lent. It's not that our usual understanding of Advent needs less Lent. It's that our usual understanding of Lent needs more Advent (and, of course, we're not going out to spend a bunch of money on new altar hangings).
Here's the thing. What Lent and Advent both have in common more than penitence is grace: the joining of human and divine at Christmas happens for everyone and for all time. You don't earn it. You don't prove yourself. Nobody's reporting back to tattle. Whether you read the Gospel of Matthew (magi) or Luke (shepherds) the birth is heralded by some pretty sketchy characters. Like the resurrection we prepare for in Lent, it's an act of crushing generosity and love that flattens any of our own pretensions to earning our way in. It's a pure gift. Here's where the elf on the shelf comes in: that sucker is supposed to be watching, reporting back to Santa every night. Elf on the shelf is old-style Ash Wednesday, when we catalogue our failures and focus on all the ways we don't measure up. But we only do that for one day-we don't spend a whole season on it, and it's always grounded in the love of God that makes it even possible for us to withstand that honesty.
As a parent of young children I don't hold anything against anyone for trying to extract some better behavior for a time. I also love the idea of an enchanted world where the humdrum stuff that surrounds us come to life. Have you seen Dinovember? You probably want to give your kids Christmas presents, right? Because it's fun. You don't love them any less when they're behaving badly. I mean, the elf probably makes them happy too, but I just wonder if it could seem a bit less failure oriented? Christmas is about so much more. And so is Advent, and Easter, and Lent. Now I have to go find my coffee cup because I think St Peter climbed out of his icon and hid it again.
Blessings,
Sara+
This week, my facebook feed has been roughly divided evenly among two hot topics in church geekery: pronouncements on the Elf on a Shelf and pronouncements on the eternal war between blue and purple for Advent colors. You will be forgiven if you did not realize these debates were a thing.
As Henry pointed out in church on Sunday when I asked what was different and he exclaimed, "You should be wearing green!" you've probably noticed that the colors have changed for church. Advent is purple, after such a long season of green since Pentecost last June it's no wonder Henry thought it was Just Wrong. He's not the only one who would say that, though, as the partisans in the Blue vs Purple war are all aflutter. Remember what other season is purple? LENT! Do you immediately think of Lent's solemnity and penitence when you think about Advent? You probably don't. Enter: blue. The tradition of using blue for Advent is a medieval tradition that goes back to a knot of ritual practices from the Salisbury Cathedral in the eleventh century that were distinctly English as opposed to Roman. They were Anglican before Anglicanism was cool but also still really "Catholic," pre Reformation as it was. And so in the late nineteenth/ early twentieth century enjoyed quite a revival, today revealing itself in the use of "Sarum blue" in Advent.
The idea with blue is that it visually shifts the emphasis to expectation, not penitence; Lent is when we thing about amending our lives, not Advent. It reminds us of Mary, too. So why don't we use blue at Christ Church? Because in defining Advent against a too-sin-focused Lent, we miss the boat on both Advent and Lent. It's not that our usual understanding of Advent needs less Lent. It's that our usual understanding of Lent needs more Advent (and, of course, we're not going out to spend a bunch of money on new altar hangings).
Here's the thing. What Lent and Advent both have in common more than penitence is grace: the joining of human and divine at Christmas happens for everyone and for all time. You don't earn it. You don't prove yourself. Nobody's reporting back to tattle. Whether you read the Gospel of Matthew (magi) or Luke (shepherds) the birth is heralded by some pretty sketchy characters. Like the resurrection we prepare for in Lent, it's an act of crushing generosity and love that flattens any of our own pretensions to earning our way in. It's a pure gift. Here's where the elf on the shelf comes in: that sucker is supposed to be watching, reporting back to Santa every night. Elf on the shelf is old-style Ash Wednesday, when we catalogue our failures and focus on all the ways we don't measure up. But we only do that for one day-we don't spend a whole season on it, and it's always grounded in the love of God that makes it even possible for us to withstand that honesty.
As a parent of young children I don't hold anything against anyone for trying to extract some better behavior for a time. I also love the idea of an enchanted world where the humdrum stuff that surrounds us come to life. Have you seen Dinovember? You probably want to give your kids Christmas presents, right? Because it's fun. You don't love them any less when they're behaving badly. I mean, the elf probably makes them happy too, but I just wonder if it could seem a bit less failure oriented? Christmas is about so much more. And so is Advent, and Easter, and Lent. Now I have to go find my coffee cup because I think St Peter climbed out of his icon and hid it again.
Blessings,
Sara+
Friday, November 22, 2013
Wake Up Time!
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week I'm still thinking about all of this apocalyptical stuff; we'll continue to wrestle together with stories of beginnings and endings and crashings of heaven and earth this Sunday, when our friend Rev. Elise Feyerherm tackles "Christ the King" Sunday, always the last Sunday of the Pentecost season. Christ is a king, but a pretty different kind of one. Elise is part of organizing The Advent Project (https://www.facebook.com/sevenweekadvent), which encourages us to think about whether our four weeks currently allotted to Advent makes any sense...but she can tell you about that on Sunday.
Advent is "getting ready" time, but it's also "wake up" time. In my house, I walk into my 6 year old's room and declare "wake up" time and he grunts, rolls over and puts his head under the pillow. I think there's also a spiritual tendency to do that, too. Wake up time! Advent time! Your Savior is coming near! And instead of stopping in our tracks and opening our hands and hearts to the heavens and holy ground of our being, we roll over and hope that no one will open the curtains to let the light in. The fact is, our self-created darknesses often serve us quite well. The darkness of silence is easier when someone says something racist around us. The darkness of looking away from someone in need insulates us from having to ask why our work is compensated more fairly than theirs. Even things that aren't all that big-time "sinful," like taking those we love for granted-even those things are a way of rolling over and closing our eyes to the wonder of life.
I don't remember where it's from, but there's a CS Lewis quote somewhere about how the grass in heaven is so real it hurts to walk on it; not because God wants to cause us pain, but because it's so real. Right now, perched on the edge of Advent, we have an opportunity to go through this "holiday season" a little differently. We haven't yet experienced the full-on assault of Santa in every window. We haven't yet fallen down the rabbit hole of trying to stuff every longing for depth and joy with shiny things. Fun is fun. I have no problem with that. I just wonder what it would be like if we could also find joy in feeding the hungry as well as feeding our hungers. What if the really real could also be really joyful?
Where are you finding joy this almost-Advent?
What helps you to wake up? To slow down?
Check out this great Advent Calendar from my friend and colleague the Rev. Thomas Mousin:
http://thomasmousin.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/2013-advent-calendar.pdf
And check out the Advent Conspiracy while you're at it: http://www.adventconspiracy.org/
And ways to "Green" your Advent with a sustainability calendar
http://www.bu.edu/chapel/life/sustainable-advent-project/
Blessings, Sara+
This week I'm still thinking about all of this apocalyptical stuff; we'll continue to wrestle together with stories of beginnings and endings and crashings of heaven and earth this Sunday, when our friend Rev. Elise Feyerherm tackles "Christ the King" Sunday, always the last Sunday of the Pentecost season. Christ is a king, but a pretty different kind of one. Elise is part of organizing The Advent Project (https://www.facebook.com/sevenweekadvent), which encourages us to think about whether our four weeks currently allotted to Advent makes any sense...but she can tell you about that on Sunday.
Advent is "getting ready" time, but it's also "wake up" time. In my house, I walk into my 6 year old's room and declare "wake up" time and he grunts, rolls over and puts his head under the pillow. I think there's also a spiritual tendency to do that, too. Wake up time! Advent time! Your Savior is coming near! And instead of stopping in our tracks and opening our hands and hearts to the heavens and holy ground of our being, we roll over and hope that no one will open the curtains to let the light in. The fact is, our self-created darknesses often serve us quite well. The darkness of silence is easier when someone says something racist around us. The darkness of looking away from someone in need insulates us from having to ask why our work is compensated more fairly than theirs. Even things that aren't all that big-time "sinful," like taking those we love for granted-even those things are a way of rolling over and closing our eyes to the wonder of life.
I don't remember where it's from, but there's a CS Lewis quote somewhere about how the grass in heaven is so real it hurts to walk on it; not because God wants to cause us pain, but because it's so real. Right now, perched on the edge of Advent, we have an opportunity to go through this "holiday season" a little differently. We haven't yet experienced the full-on assault of Santa in every window. We haven't yet fallen down the rabbit hole of trying to stuff every longing for depth and joy with shiny things. Fun is fun. I have no problem with that. I just wonder what it would be like if we could also find joy in feeding the hungry as well as feeding our hungers. What if the really real could also be really joyful?
Where are you finding joy this almost-Advent?
What helps you to wake up? To slow down?
Check out this great Advent Calendar from my friend and colleague the Rev. Thomas Mousin:
http://thomasmousin.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/2013-advent-calendar.pdf
And check out the Advent Conspiracy while you're at it: http://www.adventconspiracy.org/
And ways to "Green" your Advent with a sustainability calendar
http://www.bu.edu/chapel/life/sustainable-advent-project/
Blessings, Sara+
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
On the Ending of the Iraq War
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, I find myself puzzling over-if I can use that light a word for something so big-the end of the Iraq war. I have probably told the story in this space before of how my husband and I got married in New York City in 2003, about six weeks before it started. February 15 was a world-wide day of action against George W Bush's plan to invade Iraq, and it also happened to be our wedding day. The BBC says that between 6 and 10 million people in up to 60 countries participated in protests that weekend-organizers put the figure at closer to 30 million. Even the Guinness Book of World Records agreed that 3 million turned out in Rome-the biggest anti war protest in history. Our wedding date was chosen because of the bishop's schedule, not our own, but when we knew about the protests planned for the day, we encouraged our guests to go uptown after the reception to march. Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke: "President Bush, listen to the voice of the people, for many times the voice of the people is the voice of God. Listen to the voice of the people saying, 'Give peace a chance.'"
Not long after, on March 20, we were in a roadside café in Rhodes, Greece, and saw the news-the war had started. Now, almost eight years later-a big 8 years for me, it's seen me get ordained to the priesthood, get called rector of Christ Church, and give birth to two children-it's done, with President Obama speaking to troops at Fort Bragg and saying, simply, "Welcome Home." This week Time Magazine also announced that their Person of the Year is "The Protestor." I'm not an avid reader of the magazine, but I appreciated their question:
Is there a global tipping point for frustration? Everywhere, it seems, people said they'd had enough. They dissented; they demanded; they did not despair, even when the answers came back in a cloud of tear gas or a hail of bullets. They literally embodied the idea that individual action can bring collective, colossal change (Rick Stengel, Time Magazine).
It's the literal embodiment of protest that's moving; putting your body where your heart is. In my sermon on Sunday I talked about a book I read recently, by Leymah Gbowee, one of the three women awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Gbowee was one of the architects of a women's peace movement that ended the brutal regime of dictator Charles Taylor. Coming to grips with their own fear and pain, they showed up day after day in the public square and organized across their own differences. Muslims and Christians, women of all tribes, working together. They even held a sex strike! But it took 14 years.
I don't know what impact those global protests had 8 years ago. I am certainly thankful for Waltham's faithful witnesses for peace who have stood on the common in Vigil on Saturdays since then, and who will still be there in witness for Afghanistan. For my own part in 2003, sending a few wedding guests on the subway is not much of a contribution (I confess that we took a cab in the opposite direction and went to a fancy hotel before coming back to Church History class on Monday). After so much of my own anger about this war-undertaken, after all, ostensibly on my behalf as an American (and a New York City resident on 9/11/01)-I long for a deeper sense of resolution or satisfaction. Instead, it's vague sadness and resignation. It is also true that a large part of the complete pull out at this time is due to the fact that the military would not tolerate losing immunity to prosecution by Iraqi law. That doesn't sound like much to celebrate.
Still, we are in the third week of Advent-the pink candle week-when we hear St Paul write to the Thessalonians in his first letter:
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (5:16-18).
The will of God in Christ for us is to rejoice; to hold fast to even the smallest shred of good that we can find, not to be blinded by so much evil. And the end of a war is surely more than a shred of goodness. Theologically, too, there is in the Christian faith the strong tradition of lament; lament for the more than 100,000 Iraqis killed, and prayers for the one million widows and two million orphans that will have to rebuild their country. Maybe penance is appropriate, too-hopefully a chastened America will move more deliberately. I also take comfort in a Christian faith in which I don't have to have the answer; two months ago, I wrote in this space about Muammar Qadaffi's death: there are as many prayers to say as questions to ask. The important thing is to engage.
Here's what the Book of Common Prayer gives us-appropriate for Christmas, too-the coming of the Dream of God, the birth of Christ, in our midst. May our own hands and feet work for this dream in this season of hope.
Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
Blessings,
Sara+
This week, I find myself puzzling over-if I can use that light a word for something so big-the end of the Iraq war. I have probably told the story in this space before of how my husband and I got married in New York City in 2003, about six weeks before it started. February 15 was a world-wide day of action against George W Bush's plan to invade Iraq, and it also happened to be our wedding day. The BBC says that between 6 and 10 million people in up to 60 countries participated in protests that weekend-organizers put the figure at closer to 30 million. Even the Guinness Book of World Records agreed that 3 million turned out in Rome-the biggest anti war protest in history. Our wedding date was chosen because of the bishop's schedule, not our own, but when we knew about the protests planned for the day, we encouraged our guests to go uptown after the reception to march. Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke: "President Bush, listen to the voice of the people, for many times the voice of the people is the voice of God. Listen to the voice of the people saying, 'Give peace a chance.'"
Not long after, on March 20, we were in a roadside café in Rhodes, Greece, and saw the news-the war had started. Now, almost eight years later-a big 8 years for me, it's seen me get ordained to the priesthood, get called rector of Christ Church, and give birth to two children-it's done, with President Obama speaking to troops at Fort Bragg and saying, simply, "Welcome Home." This week Time Magazine also announced that their Person of the Year is "The Protestor." I'm not an avid reader of the magazine, but I appreciated their question:
Is there a global tipping point for frustration? Everywhere, it seems, people said they'd had enough. They dissented; they demanded; they did not despair, even when the answers came back in a cloud of tear gas or a hail of bullets. They literally embodied the idea that individual action can bring collective, colossal change (Rick Stengel, Time Magazine).
It's the literal embodiment of protest that's moving; putting your body where your heart is. In my sermon on Sunday I talked about a book I read recently, by Leymah Gbowee, one of the three women awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Gbowee was one of the architects of a women's peace movement that ended the brutal regime of dictator Charles Taylor. Coming to grips with their own fear and pain, they showed up day after day in the public square and organized across their own differences. Muslims and Christians, women of all tribes, working together. They even held a sex strike! But it took 14 years.
I don't know what impact those global protests had 8 years ago. I am certainly thankful for Waltham's faithful witnesses for peace who have stood on the common in Vigil on Saturdays since then, and who will still be there in witness for Afghanistan. For my own part in 2003, sending a few wedding guests on the subway is not much of a contribution (I confess that we took a cab in the opposite direction and went to a fancy hotel before coming back to Church History class on Monday). After so much of my own anger about this war-undertaken, after all, ostensibly on my behalf as an American (and a New York City resident on 9/11/01)-I long for a deeper sense of resolution or satisfaction. Instead, it's vague sadness and resignation. It is also true that a large part of the complete pull out at this time is due to the fact that the military would not tolerate losing immunity to prosecution by Iraqi law. That doesn't sound like much to celebrate.
Still, we are in the third week of Advent-the pink candle week-when we hear St Paul write to the Thessalonians in his first letter:
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (5:16-18).
The will of God in Christ for us is to rejoice; to hold fast to even the smallest shred of good that we can find, not to be blinded by so much evil. And the end of a war is surely more than a shred of goodness. Theologically, too, there is in the Christian faith the strong tradition of lament; lament for the more than 100,000 Iraqis killed, and prayers for the one million widows and two million orphans that will have to rebuild their country. Maybe penance is appropriate, too-hopefully a chastened America will move more deliberately. I also take comfort in a Christian faith in which I don't have to have the answer; two months ago, I wrote in this space about Muammar Qadaffi's death: there are as many prayers to say as questions to ask. The important thing is to engage.
Here's what the Book of Common Prayer gives us-appropriate for Christmas, too-the coming of the Dream of God, the birth of Christ, in our midst. May our own hands and feet work for this dream in this season of hope.
Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
Blessings,
Sara+
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving!
This week, I'd like to share a bit more about what we're doing for Advent adult education. Each year during Advent and Lent, a small group gathers in the choir room at 6:30 for a simple Eucharist, and eats dinner over discussion in the rector's office (beginning at 7:15). This year, we'll meet to talk about economics and faith. Having worked on our capital campaign all fall, I've been much in the mindset of giving-the results of that campaign and our stewardship for 2012 show that you have been as well! And with the recent Occupy protests shining a light on the tremendous wealth inequality in the US, the moment seemed right to spend some more time thinking about inequality and faith. What are our responsibilities? What needs to be done, and how? How bad is it, really? Our conversations will be based on the work of radio journalist Krista Tippett, whose show, On Being is on each Sunday morning. We'll listen to short excerpts of her conversations with thinkers and activists in a variety of fields and discuss ways to integrate their ideas into our own lives. Below, I'm sharing a prayer-poem written by Jenifer Gamber, an Episcopal educator in Bethlehem, PA, which is one of the opening prayers for the third week in Advent.
Please, please join us-and let me know if you want to cook dinner!
Blessings,
Sara+
People Like Us
by Jenifer Gamber
Someone put his children to bed hungry tonight. Again.
Fill his emptiness. With hope. His soul. With strength to face the morning.
Fill our hearts with generosity. To share your bounty.
Someone like me today could not go to school to learn.
Grant her wisdom and perseverance. To seek justice. For herself and others. Teach us to spread the light of knowledge to all people.
Someone like me cannot read a book to his children today. Protect him. From hatred that would subdue the spirit. Lift our voices. Grant us strength. To advocate for parity.
Someone like me watched a four-year-old son today. Die of measles. Comfort her. Gather her son in your arms. Empower us to witness to your dream: a world where all children receive medical care.
Someone like me died today of AIDS. Five children orphaned. Receive him into your kingdom. Strengthen the minds, bodies and spirits of his children. Knit us together as one family. With determination to serve those affected by AIDS.
Someone like me died today. Giving birth to her daughter. Let her pain turn into a song. Of homecoming. Help us provide skilled health workers. For women during childbirth.
Someone like me today. His lips parched by thirst. Quench his thirst for water. His desire for justice. Save us from whatever hinders our stewardship of creation. And threatens clean water.
Someone like me needs a sewing machine today. To build a business. Sustain the spirit of enterprise. Her dream of providing for her family. Help us offer partnership with all people. As we work toward economic independence.
By Jenifer Gamber, modified by Krista Tippett.
From Lifting Women's Voices: Prayers to Change the World
This week, I'd like to share a bit more about what we're doing for Advent adult education. Each year during Advent and Lent, a small group gathers in the choir room at 6:30 for a simple Eucharist, and eats dinner over discussion in the rector's office (beginning at 7:15). This year, we'll meet to talk about economics and faith. Having worked on our capital campaign all fall, I've been much in the mindset of giving-the results of that campaign and our stewardship for 2012 show that you have been as well! And with the recent Occupy protests shining a light on the tremendous wealth inequality in the US, the moment seemed right to spend some more time thinking about inequality and faith. What are our responsibilities? What needs to be done, and how? How bad is it, really? Our conversations will be based on the work of radio journalist Krista Tippett, whose show, On Being is on each Sunday morning. We'll listen to short excerpts of her conversations with thinkers and activists in a variety of fields and discuss ways to integrate their ideas into our own lives. Below, I'm sharing a prayer-poem written by Jenifer Gamber, an Episcopal educator in Bethlehem, PA, which is one of the opening prayers for the third week in Advent.
Please, please join us-and let me know if you want to cook dinner!
Blessings,
Sara+
People Like Us
by Jenifer Gamber
Someone put his children to bed hungry tonight. Again.
Fill his emptiness. With hope. His soul. With strength to face the morning.
Fill our hearts with generosity. To share your bounty.
Someone like me today could not go to school to learn.
Grant her wisdom and perseverance. To seek justice. For herself and others. Teach us to spread the light of knowledge to all people.
Someone like me cannot read a book to his children today. Protect him. From hatred that would subdue the spirit. Lift our voices. Grant us strength. To advocate for parity.
Someone like me watched a four-year-old son today. Die of measles. Comfort her. Gather her son in your arms. Empower us to witness to your dream: a world where all children receive medical care.
Someone like me died today of AIDS. Five children orphaned. Receive him into your kingdom. Strengthen the minds, bodies and spirits of his children. Knit us together as one family. With determination to serve those affected by AIDS.
Someone like me died today. Giving birth to her daughter. Let her pain turn into a song. Of homecoming. Help us provide skilled health workers. For women during childbirth.
Someone like me today. His lips parched by thirst. Quench his thirst for water. His desire for justice. Save us from whatever hinders our stewardship of creation. And threatens clean water.
Someone like me needs a sewing machine today. To build a business. Sustain the spirit of enterprise. Her dream of providing for her family. Help us offer partnership with all people. As we work toward economic independence.
By Jenifer Gamber, modified by Krista Tippett.
From Lifting Women's Voices: Prayers to Change the World
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Dec. 23 Holiness in retrospect: Remember
I hope your Christmas preparations are going well, that your Advent has been a satisfying time of reflection and preparation. As Christmas approaches on Saturday, it's easy to dwell on all the prayers unsaid, all the things we might have squeezed into this time of preparation but didn't. Advent is short! Either way, though, the holiday will come, Christ will be born, and we will be joined to God.
I shared the following poem in this space a few years ago, but thought I'd sent it out again. It comes from the poet Mary Oliver (a fellow Episcopalian) from her book Thirst.
The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist
Something has happened /to the bread/ and the wine.
They have been blessed./What now? /The body leans forward
To receive the gift/ from the priest's hand,/ then the chalice.
They are something else now/from what they were/ before this began
I want/ to see Jesus,/ maybe in the clouds
or on the shore,/ just walking,/ beautiful man
and clearly/ someone else/ besides.
On the hard days/ I ask myself/ if I ever will.
Also there are times/ my body whispers to me/ that I have.
What I appreciate about the poem is that truth about the retrospective nature of so much spiritual experience. We don't always recognize the importance or power of what we are undergoing at the time; sometimes the power or profundity takes a while to filter through our consciousness. As they walked with Jesus on the way to Emmaus, the disciples just knew "a stranger;" it was only afterwards that they asked "Were not our hearts burning within us as we walked?" (Luke 24:32) We don't typically spend our days gape-mouthed at the Beauty of Creation or the Grace of Our Salvation In Christ. We don't realize our hearts are on fire. We get distracted; we are busy; we just don't see what's right in front of us. After one of my kids has had a bad night I don't even see things that are materially in front of me, much less spiritually so. Oliver points to how we still know Christ's presence even in our forgetting. As the bread and the wine become "something else" after they are blessed, we do, too-but it can take a while. Somehow our bodies know what has left the forefront of our minds.
At Christmas, as Oliver says, our bodies whisper-God has been here. God has been with us. Be silent. Remember. Remember.
I shared the following poem in this space a few years ago, but thought I'd sent it out again. It comes from the poet Mary Oliver (a fellow Episcopalian) from her book Thirst.
The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist
Something has happened /to the bread/ and the wine.
They have been blessed./What now? /The body leans forward
To receive the gift/ from the priest's hand,/ then the chalice.
They are something else now/from what they were/ before this began
I want/ to see Jesus,/ maybe in the clouds
or on the shore,/ just walking,/ beautiful man
and clearly/ someone else/ besides.
On the hard days/ I ask myself/ if I ever will.
Also there are times/ my body whispers to me/ that I have.
What I appreciate about the poem is that truth about the retrospective nature of so much spiritual experience. We don't always recognize the importance or power of what we are undergoing at the time; sometimes the power or profundity takes a while to filter through our consciousness. As they walked with Jesus on the way to Emmaus, the disciples just knew "a stranger;" it was only afterwards that they asked "Were not our hearts burning within us as we walked?" (Luke 24:32) We don't typically spend our days gape-mouthed at the Beauty of Creation or the Grace of Our Salvation In Christ. We don't realize our hearts are on fire. We get distracted; we are busy; we just don't see what's right in front of us. After one of my kids has had a bad night I don't even see things that are materially in front of me, much less spiritually so. Oliver points to how we still know Christ's presence even in our forgetting. As the bread and the wine become "something else" after they are blessed, we do, too-but it can take a while. Somehow our bodies know what has left the forefront of our minds.
At Christmas, as Oliver says, our bodies whisper-God has been here. God has been with us. Be silent. Remember. Remember.
Dec. 16: Grappling with hope
Dear People of Christ Church,
This weekend, we have several opportunities for celebration of the coming holiday. Saturday, we'll join together with St Peter's for a party with a Christingle service. Christingle was introduced to us a few years ago by a Christ Churcher who'd experienced in when he was working in England-it's a beautiful service of light and song (and a lot of candy, in the form of an orange covered in gumdrops-truly something for everyone). That will be at 3 pm on Saturday. Sunday, I hope you'll join us for our Christmas Play-"A Child is Born." It will take the place of most of the Liturgy of the Word (the beginning part of the service when we have Scripture readings, the sermon, the creed, and prayers). We'll open with a hymn and the Gospel, but then enjoy the play and the carols that are part of it.
This Advent, I continue to be gripped by hope. Not a "yes we can" kind of hope (though that kind is all fine, too)-but an almost argumentative, confrontational hope. I have felt a little like Jacob, wrestling with the angel. In the story in Genesis, Jacob is traveling back to Caanan, when he is attacked by a stranger, with whom he wrestles all night, and knocks his hip out of joint. Finally, the morning comes and the angel asks him to let him go, but Jacob says, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." There's something in this story about holding on to a promise of God-the promise of blessing, in Jacob's case-and contending with God that it be realized. I feel a little like the hope of Christmas is something I'm wrestling with. I want it; I want to believe in peace and justice and the kingdom where the lion lies down with the lamb and swords are bent into ploughshares, but I have such doubt, too.
Looking around our world, it's hard to see how love will win out in the end. But those are the promises of the prophets and the promises of Christ. I believe them, but their fulfillment seems so far away. I want to hold on to that hope more strongly, really to possess it and live through it. It's a palpable desire-almost like romantic love, where the beloved is the only thing you can see.
Our own experiences, though, are through earthly time, and we are bound by it. God's promises aren't confined by that linearity. As part of the Eucharistic prayer, we say "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." The divine reality isn't quite as chronological as that, though. In the resurrection, the battle is already won-death no longer has the last word. Yet wherever we look, there is death-death in our economic system that favors rich over poor, death in the abundance of war, death as we act out of fear rather than love. So we are praying for the grace to live in that hope, to act on it, to bring those promises of justice to reality, at same time as we celebrate the coming of that baby who changes-has already changed, and will change-absolutely everything.
Paradoxically, I think it's my struggle with that hope that makes it feel all the more promising; as something outside of myself, I sense its reality, even as it's something I feel I don't fully have. So I guess I am not having such a peaceful Advent after all, but I'm grateful for it. What are you being gripped by this Advent? What are you longing for?
Blessings,
Sara+
This weekend, we have several opportunities for celebration of the coming holiday. Saturday, we'll join together with St Peter's for a party with a Christingle service. Christingle was introduced to us a few years ago by a Christ Churcher who'd experienced in when he was working in England-it's a beautiful service of light and song (and a lot of candy, in the form of an orange covered in gumdrops-truly something for everyone). That will be at 3 pm on Saturday. Sunday, I hope you'll join us for our Christmas Play-"A Child is Born." It will take the place of most of the Liturgy of the Word (the beginning part of the service when we have Scripture readings, the sermon, the creed, and prayers). We'll open with a hymn and the Gospel, but then enjoy the play and the carols that are part of it.
This Advent, I continue to be gripped by hope. Not a "yes we can" kind of hope (though that kind is all fine, too)-but an almost argumentative, confrontational hope. I have felt a little like Jacob, wrestling with the angel. In the story in Genesis, Jacob is traveling back to Caanan, when he is attacked by a stranger, with whom he wrestles all night, and knocks his hip out of joint. Finally, the morning comes and the angel asks him to let him go, but Jacob says, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." There's something in this story about holding on to a promise of God-the promise of blessing, in Jacob's case-and contending with God that it be realized. I feel a little like the hope of Christmas is something I'm wrestling with. I want it; I want to believe in peace and justice and the kingdom where the lion lies down with the lamb and swords are bent into ploughshares, but I have such doubt, too.
Looking around our world, it's hard to see how love will win out in the end. But those are the promises of the prophets and the promises of Christ. I believe them, but their fulfillment seems so far away. I want to hold on to that hope more strongly, really to possess it and live through it. It's a palpable desire-almost like romantic love, where the beloved is the only thing you can see.
Our own experiences, though, are through earthly time, and we are bound by it. God's promises aren't confined by that linearity. As part of the Eucharistic prayer, we say "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." The divine reality isn't quite as chronological as that, though. In the resurrection, the battle is already won-death no longer has the last word. Yet wherever we look, there is death-death in our economic system that favors rich over poor, death in the abundance of war, death as we act out of fear rather than love. So we are praying for the grace to live in that hope, to act on it, to bring those promises of justice to reality, at same time as we celebrate the coming of that baby who changes-has already changed, and will change-absolutely everything.
Paradoxically, I think it's my struggle with that hope that makes it feel all the more promising; as something outside of myself, I sense its reality, even as it's something I feel I don't fully have. So I guess I am not having such a peaceful Advent after all, but I'm grateful for it. What are you being gripped by this Advent? What are you longing for?
Blessings,
Sara+
Thursday, January 8, 2009
From Dec. 10: Advent
Christmas will be here in two weeks.
[take a breath]
I was commenting to someone recently that it usually takes me about 2 weeks of Advent to realize that it actually is Advent—somehow Christmas always seems to come so suddenly. No wonder the readings leading up to Advent all talk about the need to keep awake! But somehow every year, I’m never awake quite enough until about halfway through.
It’s Advent—a season of preparation, hope, anticipation. We still use purple liturgically, linking it to the penitential sense of Lent, but a more optimistic blue is increasingly popular with our protestant sisters and brothers. But you don’t need it to be December to feel hopeful. Our church year repeats itself in miniature in our lives. We’ve all had the experience of Good Friday in the height of Pentecost, and we’ve all experienced tiny Easters in the depths of Lent. Our church year leads us intentionally through a cycle of spiritual experience that we might go through in the cycle of just one day.
The medieval mystic Bernard of Clairvaux talks about how there are actually three advents—two visible, and one invisible. The first advent is the one we always think of—the advent of Jesus the Christ child, born of Mary. The third is the one we look toward at the end of days—as the Eucharistic prayer has it, “we proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” The second advent is in the middle, in our own lives, right now. Christ is coming today! In Advent, we turn our attention to preparing, and waiting, but it’s preparation and waiting for Christ who is NOW as well as Christ who is coming. The very technological theologian way of saying it is “already not yet.” Just as with the Trinity we have to forget out to count (1+1+1=1, not 3), with Advent we have to forget to tell time.
Here and now, though, time goes forward, forward, forward, no matter what I do.
It’s already Thursday of the second week of the month and we’re still working on the parish newsletter. In the midst of getting anxious about it this morning I paused for morning prayer online—I like the missionstclare.com website for the Daily Office—and I snapped out of it (for the moment, at least).
Christmas is coming, God is present. Christ has been, will be, and is, right here and right now: whether or not our work is finished, whether we’ve had enough sleep, whether the dishes are done. Thanks be to God, alleluia, alleluia.
[take a breath]
I was commenting to someone recently that it usually takes me about 2 weeks of Advent to realize that it actually is Advent—somehow Christmas always seems to come so suddenly. No wonder the readings leading up to Advent all talk about the need to keep awake! But somehow every year, I’m never awake quite enough until about halfway through.
It’s Advent—a season of preparation, hope, anticipation. We still use purple liturgically, linking it to the penitential sense of Lent, but a more optimistic blue is increasingly popular with our protestant sisters and brothers. But you don’t need it to be December to feel hopeful. Our church year repeats itself in miniature in our lives. We’ve all had the experience of Good Friday in the height of Pentecost, and we’ve all experienced tiny Easters in the depths of Lent. Our church year leads us intentionally through a cycle of spiritual experience that we might go through in the cycle of just one day.
The medieval mystic Bernard of Clairvaux talks about how there are actually three advents—two visible, and one invisible. The first advent is the one we always think of—the advent of Jesus the Christ child, born of Mary. The third is the one we look toward at the end of days—as the Eucharistic prayer has it, “we proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” The second advent is in the middle, in our own lives, right now. Christ is coming today! In Advent, we turn our attention to preparing, and waiting, but it’s preparation and waiting for Christ who is NOW as well as Christ who is coming. The very technological theologian way of saying it is “already not yet.” Just as with the Trinity we have to forget out to count (1+1+1=1, not 3), with Advent we have to forget to tell time.
Here and now, though, time goes forward, forward, forward, no matter what I do.
It’s already Thursday of the second week of the month and we’re still working on the parish newsletter. In the midst of getting anxious about it this morning I paused for morning prayer online—I like the missionstclare.com website for the Daily Office—and I snapped out of it (for the moment, at least).
Christmas is coming, God is present. Christ has been, will be, and is, right here and right now: whether or not our work is finished, whether we’ve had enough sleep, whether the dishes are done. Thanks be to God, alleluia, alleluia.
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