Meditation on This Week's Narrative Lectionary

The readings for Sunday, December 9, 2012:

Joel 2:12-13, 28-29


optional reading:  Luke 11:13

Last night, my spouse and I had a special guest to our house for dinner.  Our campus pastor, who has moved on to other tasks, was in town, and we were happy to host him.  How amazing that after all these years, we're still in touch and happy to see each other.

We talked of all sorts of things, mainly church related.  His current work has him travelling to various churches across various ELCA Synods, so he's seeing how people are living their faith in real time in various settings.  It was fascinating.

We talked of the challenges for the church (both the ELCA and The Church in a wider context) as we move forward through this century.  We talked of our various wearinesses.

I find the words of the prophet Joel particularly comforting this morning.  Humans have a tendency to look back and to see a golden age which has passed.  Most of us look back with blinders.  We don't remember how life really was when we were living it.

The ancient texts are a helpful counterpoint here.  We see Joel calling on the people to repent.  We get a sense that actions above and beyond the usual repentance are in order:  fasting, weeping, opening of hearts, and making offerings.

Sounds similar to our age, does it not?

The last part of the passage for this Sunday's lectionary gives the promise that God's spirit will be poured out on believers and wonderful events will ensue.  We will be drenched with visions for a better life--and we can assume that God will give us what we need to be able to fulfill those visions.

As we move through the Advent season, we move closer to the Christmas holiday that celebrates the fulfillment of Joel's promise in a spectacular way:  God incarnate in the manger.  But it's important to remember that the Holy Spirit still moves among us.  It wasn't just a one time special event in Bethlehem.  We're still blessed with visions and dreams--and if we have eyes to see, we can see that those visions, dreams, and prophesies lead us to glorious places and experiences.

The Feast Day of St. Nicholas

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.  Lack of dowry meant that marriage impossible for the daughters, 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.

Saint Nicholas is probably most famous for his associations with Christmas. 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.

Saint Nicholas is also the patron saint of sailors, who used to leave each other by saying "May Saint Nicholas hold the tiller!"

So, on this day, may we be led by the spirit of generosity, especially generosity to the poor. May Saint Nicholas hold our tillers and guide us to open our purses and wallets and bags of gold.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 9, 2012:



Malachi 3:1-4 or Baruch 5:1-9

Luke 1:68-79 (Luke 1:78)

Philippians 1:3-11

Luke 3:1-6

In this week's Gospel, we see and hear John the Baptist proclaiming the good news. We'll see him in different contexts throughout the liturgical year. Luke gives a rather tame introduction--no locusts or wild honey. But he is living in the wilderness, which has led me to think of the role of wilderness in the lives of believers.

Again, in this season of relentless festivity, this Gospel (and all the Advent readings) might give us a bit of disconnect. Why is John in the wilderness? What is the nature of this good news? What does it have to do with the fierce consumerism that also calls to us this time of year?

The words of Isaiah could stir even the most emotionally dead of us. This vision that God has for our world is also one that we yearn for--and perhaps it is those yearnings that drive us to spend, spend, spend. Why would we spend, instead of taking our cue from John and proclaiming the Good News? Perhaps because we don't recognize these yearnings for what they are. Perhaps because our capitalist culture isn't committed to showing us the wide range of possible responses to our yearnings for something better.

If we're living in the wilderness, we may feel cut off or otherwise deadened. It's hard to think about wilderness, in this time of overdevelopment. Many of us live in places where there is more concrete than desert (or other forms of wilderness). Perhaps one of these places of relentless "development" is where John the Baptist would come from, if we re-cast the story in modern terms.

Or perhaps it would be useful to think of wilderness in other ways. Perhaps the wilderness is not a geographical place, so much as an emotional one. Many of us approach December with all kinds of dread. We don't have enough money to pay for necessities, much less gifts. We've lost loved ones, and the holidays remind us of those holes left by loss. We remember a time when we liked the holidays and we've lost that person who approached the season with wonder and joy. We have too much caretaking to do and no one taking care of us.

Listen to the words of John the Baptist again. Listen to God, who often calls to us from the wilderness. Let the words fill your heart with hope: "The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." (Luke 3: 5-6). Your salvation is at hand: your grieving heart will be comforted, your anger and irritation will lift, the planet will heal itself as it always does, God will take care of you and everything you need is on its way. Glad tidings of good news indeed.

Simplifying My Advent Discipline

On Sunday, we had our annual Advent wreath making at our church.  What fun! 

Our pastor did the hard work of getting all the pine bough castaways and cuttings.  He went to Home Depot and several other places that sell trees.  They're happy to load up his car, because that's less they'll have to pay to have someone cart it away.  We'll cart it away for free.

As we were creating, we vowed that we would actually use them this year.  I was relieved to find out that I'm not the only one who sets out the Advent wreath and doesn't actually ever use it.

I had an epiphany as we created.  Maybe I'm trying to do too much.  For example, this year, I had thought about adding devotions to my schedule and meditation and prayer.  On Sunday, I thought, what if I plan to simply light the candles and say a prayer?

That's a less intimidating prospect, to be honest.  Surely I can find time a few times a week to light the candles and pray a sentence or two.  If I have time to do more, great.  But I want to do that minimal amount.

Hopefully on the 4th Sunday of Advent, I'll post a picture of my Advent wreath, and the candles will be burned down, thus signifying my keeping of my pledge/hope.

I'm off to a good start.  Last night, my husband and I lit the candles and said a prayer.  I'm fairly sure I wouldn't have done it if I had planned to read a devotion.  But a few minutes with a lit candle at the end of the day?  We can do it!

In case you'd like to adopt a similarly simple pledge, here are some prayers that we'll be using during our Worship Together service.

"Blessed are you, O Lord our God, ruler of the universe.  You call all nations to walk in your light and to seek your ways of justice and peace, for the night is past, and the dawn of your coming is near."

"Bless us as we light the candle(s) of this wreath.  Rouse us from sleep, that we may be ready to greet our Lord when he comes and welcome him into our hearts and homes, for he is our light and our salvation.  Blessed be God forever.  Amen."

Advent 1: Light and Metaphor and Extinction Events

Our Worship Together service tries to provide a variety of ways for people to interact with the Biblical text for the day:  small group discussion, sermon-like presentation, a piece of art for people to consider and discuss, a song, signing some of the song, puppet shows, and small-group discussion.  Some days, we do an additional small group exercise; a few weeks, we did a haiku exercise that I wrote about here.

Our Bible reading for yesterday, the first day of Advent, was John 1:1-3, an excellent introduction to metaphor.  God as word:  certainly I can relate to that.  But if I was a painter, would I want God to be described as paint on a canvas?  We talked about this a bit in our small groups as we completed yesterday's art exercise.

We had a big sheet of paper on which we wrote all the things in our world which give light:  flashlights, the sun, light bulbs, things like that.  We were allowed to write and/or to draw.

Then we had two pieces of paper, one white, one black.  On that paper, we drew an image that represents Christ.  We were allowed to go with something traditional, like a manger or a cross.  Or we could be more metaphorical.

My group was composed of 2 English major types, 1 scientist, and 3 teenagers (actually, one may be in his early 20's).  We had no trouble coming up with a variety of possibilities.  My contribution?  I said that Jesus is like an asteroid.

My group asked me how I came up with that idea.  I talked about Apocalyptic Planet, the book by Craig Childs that I'd been reading which talks about a variety of extinctions that the planet has experienced.  I talked about the asteroid that crashed into the earth and how that asteroid is thought to be responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.  The extinction of the dinosaurs made it possible for smaller mammals, like humans, to find a foothold and achieve prominence.

We agreed that the violence of that event was problematic.  Jesus wipes out the big animals, like the dinosaurs?  I said, "Jesus comes to wipe out the dinosaurs of hate to make room for the animals of love to take hold."  We had fun discussing it, along with other possibilities.

In the end, our group artist drew a lamb standing on an asteroid.  We cut out the image and did a shadowbox kind of thing with the two colors of paper.

Why white and black?  We talked about colors that reflect light and colors that absorb light and what that has to do with Jesus and the way we respond to him along with the way he responds to us.

I must confess, it's the art exercise in which we participate that I remember most vividly.  Putting together a drama that demonstrates a Bible story (the house built on sand, the house built on rock) or writing a haiku or drawing an image--that stays with me longer than a sermon, longer than a song, longer than the discussions that led up to the finished project. 

My brain is not alone in responding that way, but I'm not going to explore the neuroscience here, simply make the observation.  It's worth thinking about, though, as we craft our worship services, our Sunday Schools, and our Confirmation classes.  Vacation Bible School seems to be already on board with this idea of a text that we learn about from different directions in a given module. 

Why has it taken so long to transfer these lessons to other ways that we hope to shape Christians into better disciples?

When God Sings Along

Last night, I got to hear my spouse sing with the Broward Chorale.  He's been rehearsing for this Christmas concert for months.  He even sang the music during our long car trips.  As we traveled toward Thanksgiving, he said, "I'm worried that you'll get to the concert and be bored because you've heard this music so much."

"On the contrary, I'll be interested to hear how your part blends with everything else."  I said.

Oh, I was.  What a wonderful experience.

Now, I should confess that I'm happy to hear Christmas music in any venue.  I'd happily go to a Christmas concert in the middle of the summer.  So, last night would have been a delight regardless.  But it was extra special, knowing how much time and care went into this concert.

I am amazed at the talent that I saw.  It's not like the director went out to hand pick everyone.  It was done under the auspices of our local community college, so some students sang as part of a class.  But anyone from the community could show up, and to my knowledge, no one was turned away.  Through months of practice, they became a unified whole.

They sang complicated music, some of it atonal and dissonant, some of it festive and fun.  They ended with a rousing version of "Children Go Where I Send Thee."  As they sang, I felt glimmers of God singing along too.

I invited everyone to come to the concert, but I didn't expect that too many people would come.  It's the holidays, after all, and everyone has demands on their time.  Heck, even a concert in July would face that obstacle.  So much one could do, so little time. 

The familiar members of the audience were church members.  Some of them came because they have family members in the Chorale.  But some of them came because they're friends of the Chorale members who sing in the church choir. 

Let us not neglect to mention the cheap entertainment aspect of the evening.  Colleges and schools offer so many resources to the community, but I'm impressed with the inexpensive aspect of what they offer.  I can see a concert or a play for a nominal fee.  Famous people come through, and I can see them.  Even if I don't have time to take a class, I can benefit.

We were surrounded by college students, many of whom had clearly never gone to a concert.  At Intermission, when the lights came up, I heard one student say, "So, is that it?"  The other student told him it was Intermission, which baffled the student who asked the question.

"Like halftime in football."

But at the end of the night, even the students who had never been to a concert were leaving in a pumped-up mood, elevated by the good singing and the Gospel message.  And as they sang while they were heading out into the night, once again, I heard God singing.

Making an Advent Wreath

Last night we met at the parsonage to talk about our Worship Together service and to make an Advent wreath for the service.  This Sunday will also be the annual Advent wreath making event at our church, so our pastor had lots of supplies.  We ended up not only making a wreath for the worship service, but also for our homes.

At first, I thought, no, I won't do this, no need for this.  And then, I was curious.  And then, I really enjoyed it. 

I've had some trouble coming to terms with the fact that Thanksgiving is over.  I'm still wishing I had taken more time to enjoy the time that led us to Halloween.  It was wonderful to slow down enough to make a wreath that can help us focus on the coming of Christmas.

We used wreath forms made of straw, so it wasn't as hard as the wreaths I've made in the past, which involved twisting evergreen branches into a wire form.  We put the candle holders in, which was the hardest part.  And then we arranged bits of pine branches around the wreath.  We plunged wire hook-like devices into the form to hold it all together.

I didn't think to bring my camera, but really, the process isn't hard, and most of us live in places where the supplies are readily available.  Why not make a wreath?

We had a few ribbons, so we did some decorating.  I tied ribbons around the candles because I really liked the look of the unadorned greens.

My spouse tied a red, wiry ribbon around the bottom of the wreath.  He talked about its prickeriness and likened it to a crown of thorns.

We've grown weary of the "Put Christ back in Christmas" campaigns.  I have said our slogan should be "Put the cross back in Christmas."  I've been partly kidding, partly not. 

On our way home, we thought about creating Advent wreaths that are both wreath and crown of thorns.  We thought about a Lent wreath.  We thought about an Advent wreath that transitions to a Lent wreath.

If I was a visual artist, I'd have all kinds of inspirations.  Maybe I'll play with it some more at a future point.

But for now, I have a lovely Advent wreath.  Of course, last year I had a lovely Advent wreath; see this post for pictures of my tropical Advent wreath.  And I never lit the candles.

I'd like to light the candles of my Advent wreath at least several times a week this year.  I'd like to add some special Advent meditations.  My schedule is already starting to get a bit fuller than usual.  I'd like to fight back with these bits of Advent put into my week.