Vaccine as Metaphor for Inbreaking Kingdom of God

Before we get too far away from Christmas, I want to record some thoughts on the inbreaking Kingdom of God.  The various Christmas stories in the Bible make sense to me without the struggle that I sometimes feel with the Easter stories.  I don't have to suspend my disbelief when it comes to angel visitations and new stars sending a message for those who have been watching and alert.  When it comes to resurrection--resurrections of all sorts--I have much more trouble believing that it can happen, especially on a literal level.

In the days leading up to Christmas, we heard lots of exciting, positive news about the vaccine for COVID-19.  In so many ways, it's a good way of helping people understand the idea that God is here with us, but the whole vision is not yet complete.  Theologians use language like "now and not yet," language which can be confusing for non-theologians.

Here's where the vaccine can help us understand.  We have it, it's been tested, and we know it's going to make our lives better--not perfect, and there might be glitches, but so much better than much of the past year.  The vaccine is here, in physical form, incarnate in the world.  And yet, there's still work to do.  We can't say, "Well, we have a vaccine, so happy endings all around."  

We won't be able to have the better life that the vaccine makes possible if we don't do the work:  we need to distribute the vaccine, we need to convince people to get the vaccine, we need to make sure everyone gets 2 doses, we need to figure out how to pay for it, we need to make sure that every country gets the vaccine.  The path to a better world is ahead, but there are challenges.

Similarly, God shows up throughout our holy texts, but it's almost never the end of the story--in fact, it's the act which often sets the story off on a new trajectory.  With the Christmas story, the inbreaking Kingdom of God is incarnate in Jesus--Jesus who shows up to show us what the full capacity for human life could look like.  It must be a compelling vision--the Roman ruler puts him to death with crucifixion, a form of capital punishment reserved for enemies of the state.

The vaccine metaphor probably won't work with the full Christian story, but it's a great way to understand the concept of now and not yet.  As I was thinking about Christmas and the most hopeful news of the last week, this haiku like creation came to me:

Now yet not complete
Inbreaking kingdom of God
First vaccines given

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, January 3, 2021:

First Reading: Jeremiah 31:7-14

First Reading (Alt.): Sirach 24:1-12

Psalm: Psalm 147:13-21 (Psalm 147:12-20 NRSV)

Psalm (Alt.): Wisdom of Solomon 10:15-21

Second Reading: Ephesians 1:3-14

Gospel: John 1:[1-9] 10-18

When I was younger, the Gospel of John confounded me. What kind of nativity story did John give us? Does he not know the power of narrative, the importance of a hook in the beginning?

Look at verse 14, which may be familiar: "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father." As a child, I'd have screamed, "What does that mean? How does word become flesh?"

If we've been alive any length of time, we understand this passage in an intuitive way. Words become flesh every day. We begin to shape our reality by talking about it. We shape our relationships through our words which then might lead to deeds, which is another way of talking about flesh.

Think about your relationships, about all the people with whom you come into contact in a regular day--both in person, in Zoom meetings, on the phone. Perhaps this coming year could be the year when we all treat the people in our lives with extra care and kindness. If we treat people with patience and care, if we say please and thank you more, we will shape the flesh of our relationships into something different. Alternately, if we're rude and nasty to people, they will respond with rudeness and cruelty--we've shaped the flesh of the world into a place where we don't want to live.

In the past few years, we've seen this passage and the ideas behind it playing out on all sorts of larger stages. We are living in a much uglier world. How can we begin to reweave this frazzled and frayed fabric of our lives?

It's time to think about the New Year, and some of us will make resolutions. What can you do to make your words and beliefs take flesh? How can we do more to make a reality from the wonderful visions that God has for our lives? How can we make God's word flesh in our lives?

The Feast Day of Thomas Becket

Today is the feast day of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered by men loyal to English king Henry II on this day in 1170.  I hadn't taken much notice of this feast day until today, when I read about it in Bruce Epperly's I Wonder as I Wander:  The 12 Days of Christmas with Madeleine L'Engle.

It's interesting to stumble across this feast day after spending much of yesterday thinking about the church's remembrance of the Holy Innocents while at the same time reading analysis of our current situation--so much human suffering, and so many powerful people just looking away.

Becket was murdered for telling the rich and powerful what they could not do--all while being somewhat rich and powerful himself.  It was a time of shifting loyalties, but that statement seems true of much of history.  Becket had fled before and managed to stay alive, but at the end, he refused to bolt himself inside Canterbury Cathedral, saying it was not right to turn God's house into a fortress.  He was killed in the cathedral.

His trajectory reminds me a bit of Oscar Romero's, the archbishop of El Salvador, martyred in 1980.  Both trajectories remind me that God can use us all, and that standing up to the rich and powerful is often a way to get killed.

Epperly's ending for his Dec. 29 meditation is a good way to end today's meditation:  "In the footsteps of Thomas Becket, who death is remembered on Dec. 29, the church must follow God's vision rather than the state's and challenge the state whenever it places political ideology, profit, or power above human and planetary well-being" (p. 72).   

Remembering All the Slaughtered Innocents

Today is the day we remember the slaughter of all the male children under the age of two in Bethlehem in the days after the birth of Jesus. Why were they killed? Because of Herod's feelings of inadequacy, because of his fear of competitors.

I remember earlier years when I might have written about searching our own hearts to see how much Herod we have in our own outlook towards others.  This week-end, I thought about writing a post that ties Herod to modern politics, but now that Trump has signed the relief package, that impulse feels less pressing.

Or perhaps, to be more accurate, I am tired of thinking about Trump, tired of thinking about his narcissism, tired of the wreckage in the wake of this administration.  And yes, I realize that I have the luxury of feeling tired and deciding to look away, to write about something else.  

Let us take a minute to think about the Holy Family, transformed into refugees, fleeing for their lives with just the clothes on their backs. Here in our modern world, we see no shortage of people transformed from regular citizens to refugees in just a matter of hours.

Maybe we don't want to think on a huge, global scale. The human brain was not meant for such horror. Some of us become immobilized. But we could help refugees on a smaller scale.  We could donate money to groups that help refugees or we could write letters to legislators on the behalf of refugees.  We could work more closely with those groups that help refugees:  tutoring or cooking meals or helping with relocation.  At the very least, we can pray.

Here's a prayer for the day, from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime: "We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you , in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

The Feast Day of Saint John

The day after we celebrate the life of the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen, we celebrate the life of the only one of the original 12 disciples die of natural causes in old age. Tradition tells us that John was first a disciple of John the Baptist, and then a disciple of Christ, the one who came to be known as the beloved disciple, the one tasked with looking after Mary, the mother of Jesus.

There is much debate over how much of the Bible was actually written by this disciple. If we had lived 80 years ago, we'd have firmly believed that the disciple wrote the Gospel of John, the letters of John, and the book of Revelation. Twentieth century scholars came to dispute this belief, and if you do scholarly comparison, you would have to conclude that the same author could not have written all of those books.

Regardless, most of us remember St. John as the disciple who spent a long life writing and preaching. He's the patron saint of authors, theologians, publishers, and editors. He's also the patron saint of painters.

Today, as many of us may be facing a bit of depression or cabin fever, perhaps we can celebrate the feast of St. John by a creative act. Write a poem about what it means to be the beloved disciple. Write a letter to your descendants to tell them what your faith has meant to you. Paint a picture--even if you can't do realistic art, you could have fun with colors as you depict the joys that God has to offer.

Here's a prayer for the day, from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime: "Shed upon your Church, O Lord, the brightness of your light, that we, being illumined by the teaching of your apostle and evangelist John, may walk in the light of your truth, that at length we may attain to the fullness of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

The Feast Day of St. Stephen

Today we celebrate the life of St. Stephen, the man who is commonly known as the first Christian martyr. What does it mean that we celebrate the life of a martyr so soon after we celebrate the birth of Christ? After all, it's not like we know the birth day or the death day of St. Stephen. Our ancient Church parents could have put this feast day anywhere. Why put it here?

If you pay attention to the Lectionary readings, you will see that the issue of death is never far removed from the subject matter. Time and time again, Christ is quite clear about what may be required from us: our very lives. And we'd like to think that we might make this ultimate sacrifice for some amazing purpose: rescuing the oppressed from an evil dictatorship or saving orphans. But we may lose our life in the midst of some petty squabble; in some versions of St. Stephen's life, he is killed because of petty jealousy over his appointment as deacon, which triggers the conspiring which ultimately ends in his martyrdom.

Many of us live in a world where we are not likely to die a physical death for our religious beliefs. What does the life of this martyr have to say to us?

We are not likely to face death by stoning, but we may face other kinds of death. If we live the life that Christ commands, we will give away more of our money and possessions to the destitute. We will end our lives without as much wealth and prosperity--and yet, we will have more spiritual wealth. If we live the life that Christ commands, we may have uncomfortable decisions to make at work or in our families. We will have to live a life that's unlike the lives we see depicted in popular culture. That's not always easy, but in the end, we can hope the resistance to the most damaging forms of popular culture will have been worth it.

And history reminds us that events can unfold rather quickly, and we might find ourselves living under an empire that demands us to live a life different than the one Christ calls us to live. We may face the ultimate penalty. Could we face death? Could we pray for the empire that kills us? As Christians, we're commanded to pray for our enemies, to not let hatred transform us into our enemies.

Let us take a moment to offer a prayer of thanks for all the martyrs who have come before us. Here's a prayer for the day, from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime: "Almighty God, who gave to your servant Stephen boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that I may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in me, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

Christmas Eve, in All Its Strangeness

 I knew it would be a topsy turvy Christmas Eve:  just one church service instead of several, outdoor church with no decorations and no congregational singing.  I thought I would make a pot of clam chowder to have after church.  I thought I might have a restful day ahead of church, a day of reading and contemplation.

But first, I knew I needed to get to the grocery store, so I decided to go early.  As is often the case, I bought more than I anticipated, which meant that the putting away of the groceries took longer than I thought.

I came home to discover that my spouse had finished hanging the pendant lights over the kitchen sink.  Is it just us or are home repairs/improvements going at a much slower pace as we age?  For example, we knew that we would have pendant lights over the kitchen sink; it was always part of the kitchen remodel.  But it took us a long time to decide on the exact lights, to order them, and then to get them hung.  Of course, we have more to choose from in terms of the pendants, the design of the light itself.

And can we talk about how impossible the directions were?  My spouse needed extra time to figure out exactly how to hang them, and it was hard to tell which wire was which.

And then we washed the windows of the living area.

That sounds like such a simple thing, but our windows aren't, which is why we don't wash them often, which is why they get so dirty, which is why we get overwhelmed and don't do them at all.  Yesterday, we finally cut out the wiring from an old alarm system so that we could remove the screens and get to all of the windows.  We spent much of the middle part of Christmas Eve day removing screens, washing screens, and scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing windows and frames and window sills.

Then we tried to recover.  Washing the windows means a lot of stretching and bending--the outside glass of all of our windows are not easy to access--another reason why we don't do this often.  I took a handful of ibuprofen, took a shower, and off we went to church.

We arrived to church to find this, which made me gasp with happiness:

My pastor made the call in the early afternoon to move the 5:30 worship inside, which gave him limited time to decorate the stripped down sanctuary that hasn't been used for worship since spring.  He said he got the last 3 poinsettias from the grocery store and 2 small pine trees from the Home Depot at 25% off.  

He dug the nativity scene out of storage, along with some red balls and pine cones, and voila, a beautiful altar.

I found the service moving, but I am always moved by Christmas Eve, with its nostalgic elements and that message of the good news that God has come to be with us.

We came home to eat the cooked shrimp that I got when I went shopping.  Earlier in the day, I decided not to make the chowder, since it wasn't going to be cold outside.  We ate the last of the delicious popcorn that arrived earlier this week.  I thought about tuning into other services, but in the end, we watched the recording of our own church's service again--my spouse analyzes the music because he's part of the choir, and I control the rudimentary camera, so I'm interested to see how that looks to the people at home.

It was a different Christmas Eve, but I'm not sure I have a regular set of Christmas Eve traditions, the way I have Thanksgiving traditions.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that every Christmas Eve feels strange, now that I am grown.

But strange doesn't mean bad.

A Calmer Christmas Eve

This Christmas Eve will be unusual, for a Christmas Eve spent with my home congregation.  When we've been home on Christmas Eve, we'd head over to our church in the late afternoon to help with set up.  We'd have a 5:30 service, a 7:00 service, and an 11:00 service, and my spouse and I were part of each one.  Because our church is 30-45 minutes away from our house, we'd stay at church, both to help and for the choir rehearsal that came between the middle and the late service.  And in later years, we've stayed after the late service to count the money.  We'd get home in the wee, small hours of Christmas morning and spend Christmas Day exhausted and cranky.

Tonight we will have one service at 5:30.   It will be in the back lot (2 acres) of the church, unless it's raining, in which case we'll be socially distanced in the church--larger than the fellowship hall but we'll have concerns about the lack of air circulation that we don't have outside.  The service will be livestreamed, if the technology gods are on our side.

In the past we've experimented with the outdoors in our earliest service on Christmas Eve.  Once we had a labyrinth, and one of the more meaningful outdoor Christmas Eves was spent walking the candlelit labyrinth with a guitarist playing gentle versions of Christmas carols.  Because the weather can be iffy, in later years, we've started inside and moved in a procession with candles out to the butterfly garden if the weather held.

Tonight we'll have candles for everyone, but we won't be singing.  Actually, I wonder about that.  These hymns are the most familiar hymns the church has.  Most of us have been singing them for decades.  I can sing verse 1 of almost any hymn from memory, but it's only Christmas hymns where I can sing the rest of the verses from memory.

Tonight we'll stay after the service to count the money and make a deposit.  But we'll still get home in time to have a lovely Christmas Eve supper, along with some pink prosecco that I bought special for tonight.

In some ways, it will be like the Christmas Eve we often have when my family vacations together somewhere else.  We go to a Christmas Eve service at a Lutheran church, which is both meaningful and strange.  And then we eat a yummy meal afterward, a meal we put together, not a meal in a restaurant.

I confess I'm looking forward to a calmer Christmas Eve tonight.  I hope we can hang onto some of these lessons as we move forward.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 27, 2020:

First Reading: Isaiah 61:10--62:3

Psalm: Psalm 148

Second Reading: Galatians 4:4-7

Gospel: Luke 2:22-40

This Sunday, after the whirlwind excitement of Christmas Eve, we return to the Temple, where Simeon and Anna have been patiently waiting for God to fulfill God's promise. And in our scary times, that message is a wonderful reminder: God fulfills the promises that God makes.

Of course, it may not happen in the time period that we would like to demand. So what do we do in the meantime? We wait. Maybe we wait patiently, like Simeon. Or maybe we become impatient, like the Psalmist. But we wait. What else can we do? Scripture and Literature across many different cultures warn us of what happens if we decide that we're as powerful as God and can proceed on our own--nothing good can come of that.

What do we do while we're waiting? We can take Simeon and Anna as our models. We can surround ourselves with people who believe in God's promise. Hopefully, we find those kind of people in our Christian communities. Hopefully, we've spent our lives finding people who live in hope, even when surrounded by evidence that would make more rational people doubt.  This past pandemic years has shown us that if we don't have those people with us in person, there are many communities out there that can offer us ways to connect with hope.

Of course, we don't have to just wait passively. The Advent lessons have reminded us of the importance of staying alert and watchful. The Scriptures tell us that God will appear in many guises, none of them what we expect.

We can also take our cues from Mary and Joseph, from Elizabeth and John the Baptist, from any number of spiritual predecessors. We can decide to take our part in the redemption of God's creation. Every day gives us the opportunity to practice resurrection, as Wendell Berry phrased it. We can choose to move towards renewal. We are called to be the light of the world, the yeast in the bread dough, the salt of the earth. We've got lots of ways to do that.

I would encourage us not to leave Christmas behind too quickly. We can leave our Christmas trees up for a few more days (twelve, even, until Jan. 6, Epiphany) to enjoy the vision. We can eat one last Christmas cookie, while we reflect on the past year, and plan for the year to come. We can pray for the patience of Simeon, for the wisdom of Anna, for the courage of Mary and Elizabeth and Joseph, who said yes to God's plan. We can pray that we have the boldness of John the Baptist, who declared the Good News.

We can pray for the strength to evolve into people of hope, people who watch and wait, confident in the knowledge that God fulfills all promises.

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Advent, 2020

In the middle of last week, it looked like my pastor might not be able to be with us on Sunday, so he asked me if I would handle the service.  I said sure; I knew that I wouldn't have a problem preaching on the Advent 4 texts.  When my pastor was able to do the service, he asked if I would still preach the sermon.  Perhaps he thought I had been working hours on it and didn't want my efforts to be for naught or perhaps he didn't have time for his regular sermon prep by the time he knew he would be with us--whatever the case, I said yes.

I started my sermon on Sunday in that spot--the familiarity with the Advent texts, which means we forget how strange they really are.  Many of us probably think in ancient times the angels dropped in on humans all the time--we get so many stories of angel visitations in the early chapters of 2 Gospels.  And then I reminded people of the improbability of the good news of impending birth that the angels deliver:  Mary who is a virgin and Elizabeth who is very old--not just a year or two past menopause but very old.  

I suggested ways that we might change the Advent texts so that we heard them in a new way.  I told the congregation about my pastor friend in North Carolina who is writing a reverse liturgy for her reverse Advent wreath.  She lit 4 candles on the first Sunday in Advent and has been extinguishing them week by week.  I talked a bit about the anti-dark language we would be hearing during Christmas week and suggested that we try rewriting it, as we kept in mind what good things can happen in the dark, like gestation, and Christ's resurrection, which happened as he was in a very dark tomb.

Then I pivoted to the next part of my sermon, that the problem with the Advent texts is how ancient they are.  We assume that angels showed up a lot in ancient times, but we're resistant to the idea that God is still at work in the world.  We assume that Mary was special, but that we are not.  

I talked about Gabriel's message to Mary:  "Nothing will be impossible with God."  How would we act if we really believed that?

I said that God routinely issues invitations to us today--and that if we feel like it's too late, that we turned down God's invitation and God moved along, that it's not too late.  I referenced the Dean of Southern Seminary who spoke to our 2019 Synod Assembly to tell us that there's no expiration date on a call from God.

I closed by asking us to listen for God's invitation, accept God's invitation, while also remembering the words of John the Baptist, who said, "I am not the Messiah."  Mary doesn't have to do these things on her own.  God is with her.  Likewise for us.

To hear the whole service, go to this post on my church's Facebook page.  My sermon starts at minute 16, although there's a minute of me getting settled.  It's strange, preaching in the back acreage of the church, perched on a stool, with a music stand in front of me and the wind blowing my page of notes.

The Feast Day of Thomas and the Winter Solstice in a Time of Pandemic

 Today we celebrate the life of Saint Thomas. It's also the Winter Solstice. It's the time of year for doubting, as we finish a year (a presidential term?  a decade?) full of doubts and dread. Those of us in the northern hemisphere may feel that the dark will never recede. It's a good day to celebrate the most famous doubter of all.

Who can blame Thomas for doubting? It was a fantastic story, even if you had traveled with Jesus and watched his other miracles. Once you saw the corpse of Jesus taken off the cross, you would have assumed it was all over.

And then, it wasn't. Thomas, late to see the risen Lord, was one of the fiercest believers, legend tells us, Thomas walking all the way to India.

I wonder if Thomas is near and dear to the heart of the more rational believers. We're not all born to be mystics, after all. I worry about our vanishing sense of wonder. We've all become Thomas now. We don't believe anything that we can't measure with our five senses.  

We've spent significant amounts of time this year even doubting what we can measure with our five senses.  We've spent even more time arguing about what it means to measure.  We seem to be in a time when we can't even agree on some basic truths, let alone more complicated information.

The more I read in the field of the sciences, the more my sense of wonder is reignited. I continue to be so amazed at the way the world works, both the systems we've created and the ones created before we came along. The more I know, the more I want to shout from the rooftops, "Great show, God!" (long ago, when my friend had small children, they would shout this refrain whenever they saw something beautiful in nature, like a gorgeous sunset; I try to remember to shout it too).

So today, as the earth leaves its darkest time and inches towards light, let us raise a mug of hot chocolate to St. Thomas, who showed us that we can have doubts and still persevere. Let us raise a mug of hot chocolate to solstice celebrations and all the ways that the natural world can point us back to our Creator. Let us pray that our rational selves live in harmony with our sense of wonder.  Let us also offer a prayer of gratitude to those around us, Divine and ordinary humans, who don't cast us away for our inability to believe, to trust, to accept. 

Here's a prayer from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Winter for this day: "Everliving God, who strengthened your apostle Thomas with firm and certain faith in your Son's resurrection: Grant me so perfectly and without doubt to believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God, that my faith may never be found wanting in your sight; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen."

Tenth Visit to the Spiritual Director

On Thursday, I drove down to Miami to my 10th meeting with my spiritual director.  I always try to keep a blank agenda for our time together, although if I felt really strongly about a discussion topic, I would bring it up.

We began by talking about the time of year we're in, the Christmas Eve plans of our churches, the holiday plans of our families.  I talked about all the grading we'd been doing in my household, and I talked about my earlier experience of grading, back when the pandemic first upended our lives in March, and I told my students to work on their own schedules keeping in mind the date and the hour when I had to turn in grades.

I talked about how that experience helped me feel I was living out a state of grace, and how I continue to wonder if I should make that similar offer to my students regardless of whether or not we're in a pandemic.  Most of my students are going to school in the midst of enormous challenges.  Maybe that state of grace would help them far more than learning to meet deadlines regardless.

My spiritual director asked me about God's law and grace, and I had a visceral, negative reaction to the idea of God's law.  We talked about how I see law as a way to punish and judge, and I don't want to be in a relationship with a wrathful God.  We talked a bit about that, about my childhood fears of never measuring up and how that has continued into adult life.  We talked about how one of the ways I want to show love and show myself as worthy of love is by fixing people's problems.

Earlier on Thursday, I had spent some time thinking and writing about my need to be a helper/fixer, and my trying not to leap right in with solutions/agendas for problems that likely aren't mine to solve/fix.  We talked a bit about that.  We talked about how someone else jumping in doesn't give space for the person to do the solving.  It doesn't allow for a wider range of possible solutions.  As we often do, we talked about the concept of detaching with love.

The most interesting part was that we talked about a God who practices detaching with love.  At first that makes me anxious, although it fits with the idea of free will.  We talked about how and why it makes me anxious.  We talked about how many of us want a Santa Claus God and how many of us don't ever grow out of that yearning.

Me, the fix-it girl, has a yearning for a fixer God.  We talked a bit about how our visions of God, along with our yearning for certain types of God, might give insight as to where we are.

We talked about believers who might need to detach with love from God so that God can do the work.  We talked about the recent "God's work, our hands" initiatives in this context.

In the ending prayer, my spiritual director prayed that we could know when to step aside so that God can step ahead.  That language stirred my soul, so I wrote it down later, and I'm writing it down here.

My spiritual director recommended Margaret Silf's The Inner Compass.  I've added it to my Amazon cart.

I'm happy to have a spiritual director with whom to have these conversations.  It's a richer experience than if I was just pondering these things on my own.

Letting Go: "Liberation Theology for a Global North Country"

Because my writing time is short today, let me make a post out of these ideas from Richard Rohr:

"In talking about letting go, we are really talking about liberation. It’s a type of liberation theology for a Global North country, if you will. Here are the proper questions: What is it we need to be liberated from, and what is it we need to be liberated for? And who is the liberator?

I think we need at least six kinds of liberation:

1. Inner liberation from ourselves (letting go of the centrality of the small self)
2. Cultural liberation from our biases (which involves letting go of the “commodity” culture and moving into the “personal” culture) [1]
3. Dogmatic liberation from our certitudes (letting go of the false self and discovering the True Self)
4. Personal liberation from the “system” (letting go of dualistic judging and opening to nondual thinking)
5. Spiritual liberation for the Divine (some form of letting go happens between each stage of spiritual growth)
6. Liberation for infinite mystery (the mystery that what looks like falling is in fact rising), which is really liberation for love."

The whole post is worth reading--go here for more wisdom.

Problem Solving and the Times We Can't

Last night, my spouse was complaining about our choir at church, where he sings, but often doesn't feel fully  included in these COVID days that have changed practices and procedures so profoundly.  The conversation expanded as he recalled all sorts of negative choir experiences of his, both in church and out of church, over the past 20 years.

I remember all the times that he's been praised for his musical talent.  He remembers every slight.

I am a fixer.  I would like to solve the current problems he's having with the church choir.  Or, to be more precise, I would like him to solve the problems he's having but to do it in a way that makes sense to me.  So, I want him to have conversations and bring songs to the choir and stand his ground in the way that he wants them sung.  He wants to sing in 4 part harmony, but several of the choir members like to assign a soloist to each verse and sing together on the chorus.

I don't understand why this impasse has become so difficult, why we must discuss it on the way to church, on the way home from church, and during week nights.  Meanwhile, I'm dealing with my own disappointments, but I'm trying to remind myself that my disappointments may disappear as more of us get vaccinated and in-person gatherings become possible.

I get frustrated when we discuss problems and disappointments, but we don't actually move towards solving them.  I've been trying to ask, "Is this mine to solve/do/fix?"  I've been trying to remember that some times we just need to blow off steam.  And some times, the blowing off of steam leads to problem solving--although it doesn't need to do that.

This morning, I saw this Henri Nouwen quote that someone used in a Facebook post, and it spoke to me.  I'm pasting it here because it speaks to me and speaks to both my own situation and the larger difficulties we're facing as we enter into a winter of pandemic.

"Ministry is entering with our human brokenness into communion with others and speaking a word of hope. This hope is not based on any power to solve the problems of those with whom we live, but on the love of God, which becomes visible when we let go of our fears of being out of control and enter into His presence in shared confession of weakness." —Henri Nouwen

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The Readings for Sunday, December 20, 2020:

First Reading: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Psalm: Luke 1:47-55 (Luke 1:46b-55 NRSV)

Psalm (Alt.): Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26

Second Reading: Romans 16:25-27

Gospel: Luke 1:26-38

Can we relate to Mary? Two thousand years of Church tradition tend to paint her in terms that serve whatever purpose society needed at the time. So in some decades we see Mary a perfect woman, sinless and blameless, the kind of woman who transcends humanity and gives birth to the Lord. Some decades write Mary out of the picture once the work in the stable is done, while other decades depict her as an interfering mother—the first helicopter parent!

We’ve heard the story of Mary so many times that we forget how remarkable it really is. We forget how bizarre the story told by the angel Gabriel must seem. A young girl growing God in her womb? A post-menopausal woman conceiving? It’s all too much to fathom.

I always wonder if there were women who sent Gabriel away: "I'm going to be the mother of who? It will happen how? Go away. I don't have time for this nonsense. If God wants to perform a miracle, let God teach my children not to track so much dirt into this house."

We won't ever hear about those women, because they decided that they didn't want to be part of God's glorious vision.

It’s important, too, to notice that God’s glorious vision doesn’t always match the way we would expect God to act. We see a history of God choosing the lowly, the meek, the outcast. Moses the stutterer, David the cheater, Peter the doubter. What business school would endorse this approach to brand building?

But our Scriptures remind us again and again that God works in mystical ways that our rational brains can’t always comprehend. If God can accomplish great things by means of a young woman, a woman beyond child-bearing years, a variety of wandering preachers and prophets, tax collectors and fisherman, cheats and liars, just think what God might accomplish with all of our gifts and resources.

Of course, first we have to hear that message, that invitation from God. It’s hard for this message to make its way through all the fear-based messages beamed to us from our culture. The angel tells Mary not to be afraid, and that is a message we need to hear. Don't dance with your dread. Don't keep company with your fears, your worst case scenarios.

We have much to fear, but we’re not that different from past cultures. Our culture gives us stories of terrorists and a planet's climate near collapse and refugees who can find no shelter while a pandemic rages. Our Scriptures tell us those same stories. 

But those Scriptures also tell us of a God that breaks into our normal lives to remind us that God is redeeming creation even if we aren’t aware of that process. Our prophets remind us that ruin doesn’t have to last forever. Gabriel gives the promise that nothing is impossible with God.

Now, that is Good News indeed.  

The End of Advent Draws Near

Here we are, approaching the end of our Advent journey. For some of us, it will be one of the strangest Advents we've ever had. Some of us have been together as a church, but we've been worshipping outside, masked and mostly silent. Some of us have continued to attend church in our homes; after many months, many of us are still not safe enough to take the risk of assembling in person.

As we process the modern good news, a vaccine rolling out, which may mean that life will be more normal in a year, it's worth thinking about what parts of the pre-pandemic life we want to bring back and which parts are better left behind. Those of us who have healthy immune systems have learned an important lesson we might never have learned any other way--we've learned what it's like to navigate a hostile world.

Many churches have moved to being more accessible than they ever would have been before, without this powerful motivator. I hope that we continue to think about those who can't be with us in person, once the vaccine makes it possible to assemble again. I hope we continue to experiment with online opportunities for people who can't assemble, vaccine or no vaccine. Disability activists would remind us of how inaccessible many of our churches are--inaccessible in so many different ways.

Mary's Magnificat sang of God coming to us in the margins, in the unexpected places far from the thrones of power. These days, these margins might be familiar to us. These margins are where where we've all been living for months.

As Advent comes to a close, it's a good time to return to the words of Mary when she sings of the God we will meet in the margins. Soon we will be swept up in the excitement of Christmas. But Mary reminds us that the baby in the manger is not destined to stay a cute baby in a Christmas card. This baby has come to disrupt our normal lives, just as this past year has disrupted so much of our normal lives.

As we move forward into 2021, let us remember the lessons of 2020; let us remember all the ways that lives can be disrupted. Let us heed the call of the angels who appear to tell us that redemption is underway. Let us resolve to be part of God's plan to bind up the broken to create something beautiful.

The Feast Day of Santa Lucia

December 13 is the day that Scandinavian countries celebrate Santa Lucia day, or St. Lucy's day. There will be special breads and hot coffee and perhaps a candle wreath, for the head or for the table.
The feast day of Santa Lucia is one that’s becoming more widely celebrated. Is it because more Midwestern Scandinavian descendents are moving to other climates? Are we seeing a move towards celebrating saints in Protestant churches? Or is it simply a neat holiday which gives us a chance to do something different with our Sunday School programming and Christmas pageant impulses?

In a time of global pandemic, I wonder how people will be celebrating this year.  They will probably celebrate the way that I almost always have, in their own houses, with their own family members.

But it wasn't always this way.

I first heard about St. Lucia Day at our Lutheran church in Charlottesville, Virginia. As the tallest blonde girl, I was selected to lead the St. Lucia day procession when I was in my early teen years. The grown ups placed a wreath with candles on my head and lit the candles. The younger children carried their candles. I walked up the church aisle and held my head very still.

I still remember the exhilarating feeling of having burning candles near my hair. I remember hot wax dripping onto my shoulders--I was wearing clothes and a white robe over them, so it didn't hurt.

It felt both pagan and sacred, that darkened church, our glowing candles. I remember nothing about the service that followed.

A year or two later, Bon Appetit ran a cover story on holiday breads, and Santa Lucia bread was the first one that I tried.

A picture from that cover story

What a treat. For years, I told myself that baking holiday breads was a healthy alternative to baking Christmas cookies--but then I took a long, hard look at the butterfat content of each, and decided that I was likely wrong. I also decided that I didn’t care.

I still bake that bread every year, and if you’d like to try, this blog post will guide you through it. If you’re the type who needs pictures, it’s got a link to a blog post with pictures.

As a feminist scholar and theologian, I’ve grown a bit uncomfortable with virgin saints, like Santa Lucia. Most sources say we don’t know much about her, which means that all sorts of traditions have come to be associated with her. Did she really gouge out her eyes because a suitor commented on their beauty? Did she die because she had promised her virginity to Christ? Was she killed because the evil emperor had ordered her to be taken to a brothel because she was giving away the family wealth? We don’t really know.

The lives of these virgin saints show us how difficult life is in a patriarchal regime. It’s worth remembering that many women in many countries don’t have any more control over their bodies or their destinies than these long-ago virgin saints did. In this time of Advent waiting, we can remember that God chose to come to a virgin mother who lived in a culture that wasn’t much different than Santa Lucia’s culture:  highly stratified, with power concentrated at the top, power in the hands of white men, which made life exceeding different for everyone who wasn't a powerful, wealthy, white man.  It's a society that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Or we can simply enjoy a festival that celebrates light in a time of shadows.

I love our various festivals to get us through the dark of winter. When I lived in colder, darker places, I wished that the early church fathers had put Christmas further into winter, when I needed a break. Christmas in February makes more sense to me, even though I understand how Christmas ended up near the Winter Solstice.

So, happy Santa Lucia day! Have some special bread, drink a bracing hot beverage, and light the candles to light up the darkest days of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere).

Good Tidings of Great Gingerbread Joy

 Last night we had a simple supper of a grilled cheese sandwich, with a side of tomatoes and cottage cheese.  It was surprisingly good.

But I really wanted something sweet.  I was thinking of whipping up a batch of brownies.  I was also thinking that I didn't dare do that--I knew I might eat the whole pan while it was warm.  I knew that the sensible thing would be to try to ignore my cravings, while also trying not to substitute something else, like crackers.  I can consume several brownie's worth of calories in crackers, after all.

We heard a knock at the door, which was odd.  We weren't expecting anyone, and it was just before 7.  My spouse checked to see who it was and then flung open the door.  I thought it might be a neighbor, there to tell us something was wrong, but no, it was our pastor.  He was in the neighborhood and brought us gingerbread people.

Each year, our church has a Sunday in Advent where we decorate gingerbread people that my pastor has spent the week baking.  

I'm including pictures from past year's events.  This week, we won't be meeting in person.  But my pastor has developed a great idea.

He's distributing the gingerbread people, and we'll decorate them in our own houses.  We'll send him pictures, and they'll be judged in terms of several categories, like gingerbread twin, mermaid, superhero, and abstract.

I think I'll go for the abstract.  My plan is to see if I can incorporate any of the elements that I've been using in my pregnant Virgin Mary sketches:

I'll need to practice, of course.  So this week-end, I'm forecasting some gingerbread baking of my own here.

When my pastor dropped off the cookies and handed me the sheet with the categories, I said, "Oh, who are we kidding?  I'm just going to eat these tonight."

He said, "I have extras in the car.  Would you like extras to eat tonight?"

I said yes, of course.  And they were delicious.

I keep thinking of all the Advent stories that have been swirling in my head.  I think of myself about to bake brownies, keeping watch over my flock by night, when my angel of a pastor appeared, bearing good tidings of great gingerbread joy.

Probably too much of a stretch--but it delights me on all levels.

Outdoor Church

I wish we had had this morning's chilly weather when we had outdoor church for the first time this past Sunday.  But last Sunday, it was much warmer.

We got to the church an hour and a half before the start time.  We needed the time to set up and for choir rehearsal.  

We hauled equipment from the sanctuary and lugged the piano out into the back area that would serve as the chancel.

The choir rehearsed, and I went to the office to start sorting the offering that had come in since last week when we did the counting.  Then I went out back and figured out where to put my folding chair.  I was grateful for the shade, but it was still uncomfortable with bugs and no breeze to cool the 84 degree heat.  The candles on the Advent wreath stayed lit for about two minutes:

As people gathered and set up their lawn chairs, I did have a moment of strange emotion--here we were, together for the first time since mid-March.  We were able to have communion together while spaced far apart behind the church.

The outdoors provided all sorts of distractions.  The sky was brilliant blue and occasionally a flock of birds flew by.  Every so often, the small planes from the nearby regional airport buzzed by.  I often looked up and breathed deeply.  Then I swatted a bug.  We're about 2 blocks away from a very busy fire station, and the church is at the intersection of 2 busy streets, so there was no end to traffic noises.  We also smelled someone's barbecue.

If my spouse wasn't part of the choir, I'd just stay home for the next few weeks of outdoor church.  There's not much participating, and sitting in a mask outside is just not pleasant.  If I'm going to sit and watch church happening, I'd rather do it from the comfort of my living room.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 12, 2020:

First Reading: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Psalm: Psalm 126

Psalm (Alt.): Luke 1:47-55 (Luke 1:46b-55 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Gospel: John 1:6-8, 19-28

Today's Gospel returns us to John the Baptist. John proves to be such a compelling figure that the religious people in charge try to determine who he is. This interchange between John and the priests and Levites fascinates me. I love that John knows who he is, but he's not interested in explaining himself to institutional figures. Still he'll answer their questions.

One answer in particular keeps banging around my brain: "I am not the Christ" (verse 20). Some interpretations have him say, "I am not the Messiah." He's also not Elijah, not the prophet. When asked to explain himself more fully, he refers to Isaiah: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' . . ." (verse23).

The first lesson from Isaiah seems more appropriate as a mission for the modern Christian, with its language of binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives, and comforting those who mourn. We are to be a garland, instead of ashes, to be the oil of gladness.

These days, there's so much to do in terms of building up, proclaiming liberty, comforting the mourners, figuring out how to rise up out of the ashes of this past year.  It's overwhelming.

When overwhelmed, it's good to return to the message of today's Gospel: we must be careful to remember that we are not the Christ. There are days when I shake my head and think, "I've been working on hunger issues most of my whole life: writing letters to legislators, giving away money, working in food banks. Why isn't this issue solved yet? How long will it take?"

I must practice saying, "I am not the Messiah." That doesn't mean I'm off the hook in terms of my behavior. I can't say, "I am not the Messiah," and stay home and watch reruns of The Simpsons and do nothing about injustice in the world.

But I am not the Messiah. We struggle against a huge domination system, as Walter Wink termed it. The lives of John the Baptist and Jesus serve as cautionary tales to me, when I get too impatient with how long it takes for the arc of history to bend towards justice (Martin Luther King's wording). They struggled against injustice and died in the maw of the system they worked to dismantle.

But the good news of the Advent season is that our work is not in vain.  The domination system, the systems of empire, are strong, but they can be overcome--and in the most unlikely ways.  New life from infertile wombs--what a powerful idea.  A new star in a vast sky heralding a change for those who have been paying attention--wow.

We are at the halfway point of Advent. What new creations are germinating in you? What new cosmos is waiting for you to discover it?

Quantum Connections and the Virgin Mary

Last week, I wrote a post about my sketching with the Virgin Mary.  The earliest one is a date card I made when I was working ahead:  

I thought it was a bit too cartoonish, so I tried again and came up with a very abstract image:

Then, I decided to do something in my larger sketchbook, the one with better paper quality.  I was also thinking about the online journaling class I've been taking, where we've been reading and creating visual responses to Barbara A. Holmes' book, Race and the Cosmos.  I really love this sketch I created, of a pregnant Mary and the cosmos:

I wrote this post to go with it:  "I saw an icon of Mary, pregnant with Jesus (or was she just in swirling blue robes?). I've been experimenting with the shapes in that icon, and this week, I merged the idea of the icon with some cosmic imagery of the types that have delighted me as we've read this book. This image seems like a good ending note (or perhaps not ending, but a gateway to the next set of images)"

And indeed, I continue to sketch:

Yesterday, I thought about Mary and Elizabeth and thought about doing something with the Visitation.  But I decided I wanted to try to capture the idea that quantum particles will continue to affect each other, even when they're not together anymore.  I started this sketch yesterday:

And then this haiku like creation bubbled up later in the day:

Quantum connections
Container of galaxies
Worlds in our wombs/words

The sketch is unfinished.   I look forward to seeing where it takes me--and the sketches beyond!

The Feast Day of Saint Nicholas

December 6 is the feast day of Saint Nicholas.  I've put some of my favorite decorations on the piano this year:

Today, all over Europe, the gift-giving season begins. I had a friend in grad school who celebrated Saint Nicholas Day by having each family member open one present on the night of Dec. 6. It was the first I had heard of the feast day, but I was enchanted.  I am guessing that Saint Nicholas Day will be celebrated differently this year, as the pandemic roars across continents.

I don't have as many Santa images in my Christmas decorations. Here's my favorite Santa ornament:

I picked it up in May of 1994 or so. I was visiting my parents, and I went with them on a trip to Pennsylvania where my dad was attending a conference. I picked this ornament up in a gift shop that had baskets of ornaments on sale. I love that it uses twine as joints to hold Santa together.

While I don't have many Santa ornaments, I do have some Santa objects.  One year, my step-mom in law and my father in law gave me these as Christmas presents:

They're actually cookie presses, and the Santa figures are the handles of the press. I've never used them as a cookie press, but I love them as decorations that are faithful to the European country of origin.

It's always a bit of a surprise to realize that Saint Nicholas was a real person. But indeed he was. In the fourth century, he lived in Myra, then part of Greece, now part of Turkey; eventually, he became Bishop of Myra. He became known for his habit of gift giving and miracle working, although it's hard to know what really happened and what's become folklore. Some of his gift giving is minor, like leaving coins in shoes that were left out for him. Some were more major, like resurrecting three boys killed by a butcher.

My favorite story is the one of the poor man with three children who had no dowry for them. No dowry meant no marriage, and so, they were going to have to become prostitutes. In the dead of night, Nicholas threw a bag of gold into the house. Some legends have that he left a bag of gold for each daughter that night, while some say that he gave the gold on successive nights, while some say that he gave the gold as each girl came to marrying age.

Through the centuries, the image of Saint Nicholas has morphed into Santa Claus, but as with many modern customs, one doesn't have to dig far to find the ancient root.

In the past decade, I've been on the lookout for more modern Saint Nicholas images.  A few years ago, one of my friends posted this photo of her Santa display to her Facebook page:

I love the ecumenical nature of this picture of Santa: Santa statues coexisting peacefully with Buddha statues. And then I thought, how perfect for the Feast Day of St. Nicholas!

God as Midwife and the Cosmic Virgin Mary

I've been thinking a lot about Mary, the mother of Jesus.  It is December after all, the season of Advent, when many people start to think about all the various meanings of Christmas.

I've also been thinking about the idea of God as midwife.  I saw this tweet the other day:  "So many of our God metaphors are aggressively masculine, obsessed with war, power, authority. Maybe they’re true, but they aren’t the whole truth. God is our Father but also our Sister. God is our savior but also our midwife" (from Laura Jean Truman).

I wrote in response:  "God as midwife--am I the pregnant woman or the baby being delivered? Perhaps both."

On the same day, Dec. 1, I saw an icon of the Virgin Mary (go to the RevGalBlogPals website and scroll down to the Tuesday prayer--I wasn't able to capture the image of the icon created by Terri Cole Pilarski).I was taken with the swirling blue robes and the red cloak.

I tried to replicate the shapes and came up with something a bit closer to cartoon than icon.  So I tried again and came up with a very abstract image (blurry in this picture, but not worth trying to capture in a better image for this post--you get the idea):

Yesterday, I decided to do something in my larger sketchbook, the one with better paper quality.  I was also thinking about the online journaling class I've been taking, where we've been reading and creating visual responses to Barbara A. Holmes' book, Race and the Cosmos.  I really love this sketch I created, of a pregnant Mary and the cosmos:

I wrote this post to go with it:  "I saw an icon of Mary, pregnant with Jesus (or was she just in swirling blue robes?). I've been experimenting with the shapes in that icon, and this week, I merged the idea of the icon with some cosmic imagery of the types that have delighted me as we've read this book. This image seems like a good ending note (or perhaps not ending, but a gateway to the next set of images)"

 

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 6, 2020:

First Reading: Isaiah 40:1-11

Psalm: Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13

Second Reading: 2 Peter 3:8-15a

Gospel: Mark 1:1-8

Today's Gospel takes us to John, a fascinating character. In today's reading, we see him, clothed in his strange costume, eating locusts and wild honey. Other Gospels present him as the cousin of Christ. Who is this guy?

I find him fascinating for many reasons. Maybe I'm always intrigued by a prophet. This year, I'm thinking about John's place in the drama of Christ's life, and how he seems completely comfortable with his place.

In earlier years, I've wondered if it would be hard to be John, with his more famous cousin Jesus overshadowing him. This year, I notice that he has the perfect opportunity to upstage Jesus--people of the time period were desperate for a Messiah, and there were plenty of predators wandering around, trying to convince people that they were the Messiah. John had more legitimacy and a wider following than most of the other people with their wild claims.

But John knows who he is. And he fills out his full potential by preparing the way for Jesus. Not only does John know who he is, he knows who Jesus is. John knows for whom he waits and watches.

We might be wise to see John as a cautionary tale too. John is one of the earliest to know the true mission of Jesus--indeed, in some Gospel versions, perhaps he realizes the mission of Jesus before Jesus fully does. Notice that John's life is turned upside down.

Many people are shocked to discover that being a Christian doesn't protect them from hard times. Being a Christian doesn't mean that we won't suffer sickness, that we won't lose our jobs, that we won't lose almost everything we love. To be human means that we will suffer loss--and thinking people know in advance that we will suffer loss, which means that we suffer more than once.

But we have a God who has experienced the very same thing. Think of the life of Jesus, who had no place to lay his head and died by crucifixion.

The good news is that we have a God who fully understands all the ways in which we suffer--and wants to be with us anyway. We have a God who fully understands all the ways in which we will fail--and loves us fully anyway.

John reminds us of our Advent goal, which is to keep watch, to stay alert. Of course, our Advent goal should spill over into the rest of our life. It's easy to keep watch in December, when the rest of the world counts down to Christmas. It's harder to remember to watch for God in the middle of summer. That's why we need to develop daily spiritual practices that will keep us watchful.

John also reminds us that we are not the Messiah. It’s Christ’s role to save people. It’s tempting to think that we can save ourselves and each other. But we can’t. It’s comforting to say, “I am not the Messiah,” as John the Baptist does, in John 1:20. In our daily lives, we’re confronted with scores of problems that we can’t solve, from various national debt crises to meetings about missed numbers and opportunities to friends and family who make disastrous choices. We can only do so much. We are not the Christ for whom the world waits.

That phrase can keep us humble too. Many a powerful figure has been disgraced by forgetting that someone else is the Messiah.

These days, perhaps we have the opposite problem. Far from feeling powerful, we may feel oppressed by forces outside our control. But our scripture readings offer comfort. We have a larger salvation, even when our daily lives feel like a persecution. Christ came to claim us, the Holy Spirit stays with us, and the day will come when we will be reunited ever more deeply with the Divine. Watch and wait and work for "a new earth, where righteousness is at home" (2 Peter 3: 13).

World AIDS Day in a Time of a New Pandemic

 Here we are, World AIDS Day, in a year of a new pandemic, a disease that's much easier to contract than AIDS, a disease that has no cure, a disease that like AIDS preys on the more vulnerable in our society.

Maybe all diseases target the more vulnerable.  And our epidemiologist friends would remind us that diseases don't have emotions or calculations.  Diseases infect where they can, and in vulnerable populations, diseases have more opportunity.

AIDS is still a fairly fierce disease, even though we have medications that can keep people alive for decades--that's still a lot of disease management, which isn't a cure.  According to this site, there are still more than 17 million new AIDS cases each year.  Every week, more than 13,000 people die of AIDS related diseases.

With vaccine news of the past weeks, I do expect that in years to come, COVID-19 will not kill as many of us.  But it will still be a disease to be reckoned with, a disease that leaves lots of wreckage in its wake.  Like AIDS, many of us will assume that COVID-19 has been tamed or disappeared.  But like AIDS, some of us will be more protected than others.

Dec. 1 is also the anniversary of the day in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. This act is often given credit for launching the Civil Rights Movement, but what many forget is that various communities had begun planning for the launch, even before they could see or know what it would look like.

In fact, for generations, people had prepared for just such a moment. They had gotten training in nonviolent resistance. They had come together in community in a variety of ways. They were prepared.

Someone asked me once how I had come to be such an optimist. I've always had an optimistic streak, but frankly, my whole world view shifted when I watched Nelson Mandela walk out of prison. I fully expected him to be killed, but again, my worldview shifted when I watched South Africans stand in line for days (days!) to elect him president. And he was ready to be president because he had spent those decades in prison thinking about how he would run the country and making plans.

I have seen enormous social change happen in my lifetime--in the face of such evidence, I must agree with Dr. Martin Luther King, who said the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.

Some years, that arc seems so long and the bending so difficult to discern.  Diseases show us where we need to bend that arc towards justice, where there's still opportunity for progress.

On this day of grim disease statistics, let us also remember what various social justice movements have taught us.  If we can harness the will of a group of people towards a similar goal, we can make great strides.

Those of us who work towards social justice and human dignity for all know how long the struggle might be. We are similar to those medieval builders of cathedrals: we may not be around to see the magnificent completion of our vision, but it's important to play our part. In the words of that old Gospel song, we keep our eyes on the prize, our hands on the plow, and hold on.

Advent and the Issue of Light and Dark

Advent is upon us, and with the season, the problematic language that talks about light overcoming darkness.  Those of us who grew up with this language might not understand why it's problematic.  Those of us who have worked with language know that language matters, and this language has an impact on how we treat people with darker skin colors.  Even those of us who have worked with language can be in a bit of denial.  

We might be in denial about the impact of theological language on modern race relations, but language shapes us, and the theological language of light and darkness is hard to escape during the holiday season, even if we swear we're secular creatures:

I've been wondering what would happen if we rewrote some of that scripture to get rid of light and dark dichotomies.  I tried writing it in haiku, just to see if that changed the reaction to it:

Those of us who use Advent wreaths to help us be more mindful during the season before Christmas may wonder how to avoid these pitfalls.  One of my Create in Me pastor friends, Naomi Sease Carriker, has created a wonderful idea.  It's a reverse Advent wreath, where all the candles are lit week 1, and each week, one fewer candle stays lit from the week before.  

She's even in the process of writing a liturgy.  Here's what she's written for week 1:

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

Today my church celebrates the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.  I wrote the following call to worship, which also works as a prayer, and then I filmed a video segment for the pre-recorded service:

We gather together as people of God
in a pandemic time when we might feel like exiles,
like people kept out of a promised land.


We gather together as people of God
in a time when many of us haven’t seen
far flung friends or family in months.

We gather together as people of God
knowing that this disease means constraints
on our ability to gather, to travel, to make plans
for the future.

We have had a tiny taste of what others have suffered
for years, for decades, even for centuries.

Let us remember this pain.
Let us resolve to be the peacemakers that God calls us to be,
so that we can work towards a vision of a time
when no one suffers
this pain of exile, exclusion, and oppression. 

If you'd like a meditation that's closer to an essay, here's what I wrote for my church's weekly e-mail:

This year, the first Sunday of Advent, November 29, is also the U.N.'s International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. At first these days may seem to have nothing to do with each other.

And for those of us who have a vision of Advent that's wrapped up with angels appearing with glad tidings and improbable wombs bursting with life, the Gospel reading for this Sunday, Mark 13: 24-3, really seems out of place. It's one of the more apocalyptic passages of Mark, where we're told about stars falling from the heavens and powers in the heavens being shaken along with the sun and moon being darkened.

It's a far cry from Advent calendars with a new piece of chocolate every day. How do we braid these strands together?

Let us begin by realizing that God comes to us in the form of Jesus in a place where we wouldn't expect to find the Divine, a place far away from the earthly center of power, which in that day was Rome. Similarly, if God came to an outcast corner of the world today, it would more likely be a city where Palestinians are kept under tight control than it would be the cities of earthly power, like Washington, D.C., or one of the Asian cities that might soon eclipse the U.S. For some of us, that would feel as unsettling as the scene that Mark describes, all the heavenly spheres completely turned topsy-turvy.

And that message will be one that Jesus preaches again and again. The salvation that Jesus comes to offer is not just pretty baby in a manger kind of imagery. It's a message that will put us on a collision course with the earthly powers that are not interested in looking out for the poor and impoverished, like the Palestinians. Christians are one of the few religions that follow a deity who suffered capital punishment--that should put us on notice that we are not likely to find fame and fortune from earthly powers.

The end of the reading from Mark is a familiar Advent theme, and one that bears repeating. In fact, Jesus does repeat it several times and in several different ways: stay awake, keep watch, don't let your levels of alertness drop.

In our time, when we have more and more distractions coming at us at a higher volume and speed, it's a good message to hear again. Stay alert--pay attention to what's important, even if you don't know what to do about it. Pay attention to those who are oppressed. Stand in solidarity with them. That's where we are likely to meet God.

Advent Eve

Tomorrow is the first Sunday in Advent.  If we're going to adopt an Advent practice, now is the time to make our preparations.  Do you need candles?  Drawing paper?  Fabric?  A book of Advent reflections?  An Advent wreath?

I will adopt the practices I always try:  an Advent wreath with 4 candles that I'll light regularly.  I might not return to my wreath every evening, but several days a week, I'd like to do that.  I have several Advent devotional books.

But this year, I will be continuing my morning devotional broadcast at 5:30 a.m. on my church's Facebook page.  As I've been doing for months now, I'll be reading from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours.  Continuing this process feels like a special Advent practice.

My church is doing an Advent wreath creating event tomorrow--we're not sure what to expect in these days when we haven't been meeting in person.  It was never a hugely attended event, but this year might be different.

I think I will create a special Advent wreath for Morning Watch.  I'm not sure how I'll let it or display it during the time.  But let me try.  Perhaps there are some electronic candles.  Hmmm.  Let me let this thought percolate--the thought about candles, not the thought about creating a wreath especially for Morning Watch. 

For many of us, this Thanksgiving week-end will be a bit different from what we usually would have experienced.  For me, I'm not driving 12+ hours today to get back home from my North Carolina family reunion.  I've got lots of food in the fridge, so no need to do food shopping or food prep.

I'm seeing some time freed up that I wouldn't ordinarily have--I want to put it to good use by getting ready for Advent.

Black Friday 2020

In normal years, some of us would have already been shopping, trying to snag Black Friday specials.  Others would have been avoiding stores at all costs.  People like me would have written posts about what we could support to make our Black Friday shopping more pleasing to God or our shopping more like the Kingdom of God.

For those of you who are wondering, I was likely to recommend supporting groups that worked for charity or justice, preferably by sending money.  For those who needed gifts to wrap, I was likely to recommend organizations that sold items created by local crafters or non-chain stores that need our business.

This year, I have no idea what we might be thinking about Black Friday.  Will people shop?  Many of us never take a holiday from shopping, after all.  Will we see deals that attempt to lure us back into stores or to part with our hard-earned cash?

This year, I've been wondering if I was too judgmental in the past.  Why did I feel that I needed to make pronouncements on people's gift giving or spending or hobbies (shopping as hobby) or annual traditions?  

And yet, I also know that our behavior does have a larger global impact.  If I buy cheap junk from China, am I complicit in harmful labor practices?  In many ways, yes.  If I abstain, will the world change?  Probably not if I'm the only one who abstains.  If more of us abstain, maybe the world will change.

I think back to high school, when I was a lonely vegetarian.  Now we recognize the health benefits, and vegetarians have many more options in terms of available food.  But have farming systems changed so that animals are treated more ethically?  In some ways, yes.  In more essential ways, no.

This year, which has been a year that has taken so much from so many of us, this year I say to celebrate Black Friday in whatever ways will bring you joy if you can do them in ways that you can stay safe.  I believe that God calls us to a life of more joy, not less joy.  If observing Black Friday by shopping brings you joy, then enjoy the joy!