The Darkest Dark

 

 

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.  For darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you.  Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.                                                    ~Isaiah 60:1-3

 

 

For a kid who grows up on the farm there's a unique sense of time that evolves from everyday life--and it's different from time anywhere else in the world.  Workdays aren't defined by the clock, and hardly by the sun.  They're defined by the work that needs to be done. And the seasons roll on.

 

My favorite season is autumn.  Back in the Midwest, in late October the air changes.  It's cooler.  And usually by Halloween, you can see your breath suspended in the air as you laugh and talk with friends on the way home from school.  The maples and oaks paint the countryside with the most breathtaking crimsons and golds you ever saw.  And you can layer yourself with bright woolen plaids.  And everyone walks a little faster.

 

Life on the farm is all about minding the seasons and having patience.  It's about planting seed in the spring and waiting for the rain--and if too much or too little rain comes, sometimes planting again and waiting again.  Cultivating crops in the summer and waiting.  Standing by, knowing that the crops will tell us when it's time to harvest them.  And waiting through the fall rains till the fields are dry enough to get in.  Then sometimes having to wait till they're frozen, if the ground never dries.

 

Farming is about plowing the soil to turn it over, just before the first hard freeze.  And waiting.  All winter.  Waiting and knowing that in the deep, frozen darkness below the surface of that soil, the miracle of rest is happening. 

 

The season of our life on this planet is changing.  We no longer have the luxury of comparing our separated, segregated selves, gathering proof that we are right and true and better or best of all.  We can no longer afford to offer up the welfare of earth in exchange for quick profit.  In this season of our life, those with power must choose not to use it for dominance if we wish to survive.

 

What is the darkest dark you've ever seen?  For me the darkest dark in all the world is in the cellar.  At home when I was growing up the cellar was separate from the house.  It was igloo shaped, built of bricks, with stairs leading down from the outdoors to a cement floor.  It was covered with dirt and thick grass growing in that dirt.  On the outside the cellar made a wonderful hill for rolling down and for playing "king on the mountain".  But the really awesome part was on the inside.  IT WAS DARK.

 

I can remember Mother saying, "Take this pan, Linda, and go to the cellar and get five potatoes for dinner."  It took both hands to lift the cellar door, and I'd let it drop to the ground, on the other side of the hinges, with a bang.  It seemed to take an hour to walk down those steps.  I took them slowly so that my eyes could adjust to the dark as I went.  The goal was to be able to see in the dark by the time I got there, so I could identify where the goblins were, and get away from them.  (As I got older and more sophisticated, I convinced myself that I was just watching for crickets.)  The air in the cellar was always cold & I'd get a chill.

 

Squinting in the dark I'd find the potato crates and gasp in horror.  There in the secret dark an awful thing had happened.  Every eye of every potato had grown a ghostly tendril and they were all reaching for me like hungry fingers.  Another chill.  This time not from the cold.  Then I'd get over my fright and pick up the five biggest ones by their fingers and run up the stairs to safety.

 

Years later I was amazed to hear my daughters describe the source of their fears.  My ominous potato sprouts paled to their deep pessimism grounded in our ability to destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons.  They and their friends believed they would not live to adulthood.  Others believed then, and do now, that our suicide will not be so abrupt, but rather that we will continue to kill ourselves slowly by destroying the planet we so glibly call home.

 

I remember what a refuge the cellar was at other times.  Still creepy, but a refuge.  Mother would say, "come on, kids.  We need to go to the cellar."  And we knew not to question.  My grandparent's home had vanished in a tornado, and we grew up on stories of chickens found miles away, some still alive but without any feathers, and some of their feathers driven into fenceposts in the place where the chickens had been picked up.

 

My brother, Norman, and I would enter that deep dungeon of a cellar and sit side by side on the bench where the potato crates were, his feet dangling, only my toes resting on the floor because I was trying to touch as little of the dark, damp surface as possible.  On the shelf beside the canned goods, near the door, was an old Kerr canning jar, the kind with the galvanized metal lid with a white porcelain lining.  And inside that jar, where it was dry, were some wooden matches and the stump of a candle.

 

When the door was pulled shut it was as dark in that cellar as a tomb.  And it smelled like wet dirt and decaying potatoes.  And I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.  And I wouldn't have known Norman was there if he hadn't been chattering all the while, "Winda, what's gonna happen next?"

 

What is the darkest dark you've ever experienced?  Perhaps when you stood alone in the face of death.  Or when you struggled to breathe in a spiritual vacuum because someone you loved had died.  It may have been in that unbelievably long stretch of time when you were looking for a job.  Maybe it was a financial disaster that took you to the threshold of bankruptcy.  Or perhaps in divorce when you realized that there was no going back, and nothing to do but inch your way through the pain and the loneliness.  And no one could do it for you.  And no one could do it with you.  Remember the darkness when the question was throbbing and there seemed to be no answer and your own voice echoed back at you, "What's gonna happen next?"

 

As difficult and even frightening as the darkness may be, it's not entirely a bad thing.  In fact, the cellar was mysteriously pregnant with promise.  Something marvelous had been happening all winter long in that cellar, with the door closed and no light coming in.  Next year's potato crop was happening.  When the long, icy winter was finally over and the garden was thawed enough to work the ground, we would turn it over once again.  And everything that had been sleeping in that deep, frozen darkness began to awaken. 

 

Mid-March my parents would bring up the potato crates, now full of the most pitiful looking potatoes you ever saw... shriveled and wrinkled like old farmers.  You couldn't possibly peel one for eating.  And who would want to?  Every one of them was covered with ghostly white tendrils, now grown so long that the potatoes seemed to be holding onto each other for dear life; as if they knew what was about to happen.  Mother and Daddy would cut those potatoes up into as many pieces as there were sprouts, leaving enough of the meat of the potato to feed the new plant, and they would stick those ugly things in the ground… and cover them with newly awakened dirt… and wait.  Then, about the time the first peas were ready, the first potatoes joined them on our table.  What a feast!

 

In Dr. Stephen Kim's class, "Christian Identity and Mission in the Global Village", we've been struggling with how Christians can engage with people of all faiths in a society no longer defined by international boundaries, the languages we speak or the religions we practice, but by the planet we share.  It's a hard question.  We've been looking for a common ground where all faiths in a diverse world can meet.  I wonder if we'll ever find it.  Sometimes I think our common ground is to be found in the fact that we all teeter together on the brink of disaster.  In this season that we Christians call Advent, perhaps there is a hint of another promise. 

 

Finally respecting the power we have to destroy each other and therefore ourselves--aching from the torn places in our relationships between families, friends, nations--all of groaning humanity hovers in the deep, frozen darkness, waiting together in hope.  Perhaps this is the commonality we've been struggling to define--this hope.  Perhaps it is our hope that keeps us here, waiting in the dark, together.

 

I remember hearing the metal against the glass as the lid came off of that Kerr canning jar. So that meant Mother was there with us in the dark.  But where was Daddy?  Still out in the storm?  Then I heard the sputtering of the phosphorous on the match head as it struck the brick wall of the cellar.  I remember the unbelievable radiance of the blue-white flame that pierced our darkness as Mother lit the candle.  And how good it was to see Daddy standing there beside her in his overalls... safe.

 

It was only because of our profound and utter darkness that a simple candle was able to produce such brilliance.  And it was only because I couldn't see at all that what my eyes finally beheld by candlelight was so delicious.

 

We pray thee, God, for the coming of a light to dispel our darkness.  Amen.

 

 

© Rev. Linda Miller, December 1, 1999. 

Delivered in Claremont School of Theology Chapel

 

 

What could possibly make God sing today?

Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
¹⁵ The Lord has taken away the judgements against you,
he has turned away your enemies.
The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
you shall fear disaster no more.
¹⁶ On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Do not fear, O Zion;
do not let your hands grow weak.
¹⁷ The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you^* in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
¹⁸ as on a day of festival.^*
I will remove disaster from you,^*
so that you will not bear reproach for it.
¹⁹ I will deal with all your oppressors
at that time.
And I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
and renown in all the earth.
²⁰ At that time I will bring you home,
at the time when I gather you;
for I will make you renowned and praised
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
before your eyes, says the Lord.
                           ~Zephaniah 3:14-20


   Today I wrestled with the lectionary from Luke, which follows last week’s passage. John the Baptiser’s words are full of condemnation for humanity’s violations of God’s law, and disregard for God’s deep desire for the people to live in peace with justice.  The condemnation may be even more appropriate today, in the wake of the horrific shootings in Connecticut yesterday, than almost any other time, including Luke’s.  We as a society have allowed this unthinkable thing to happen, killing children, destroying families, altering an entire community, and thus the world.  We deserve to be yelled at like John the Baptist raged at the people, descendants of Abraham, over their stubborn flirtation with evil. 

   So I will recommend that you read Luke 3:7-18 for background, and remember that in his call to repentance, John is saying “It isn’t enough that your granddaddy Abraham was a righteous man, devoted follower of God, establisher of your entire nation.  You can’t ride through life on Abraham’s coattails.  You have to cop some righteousness of your own.  The time is short.  Get on it.  Do something to turn this mess around…NOW!!!!”  And know, friends, that deep in my soul I just want to shout that message loud and clear, and pronounce my Amen and let that be my sermon for the third week of Advent.  With all my heart I wish that shouting prophecy would finally be enough to make the change happen that we need. 

   But my heart is breaking like I’m guessing your heart is breaking over the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School yesterday.  I am a resurrection preacher (which means that I have a compulsion to look for the promise of new life in the worst of situations), and this is the worst of situations.  So I went looking further in the lectionary for promise, and I stumbled across the passage above from a little known prophet named Zephaniah.  He seems to have been a disciple of Isaiah; there are recognizable Isaiah threads in his collection of writings.  His words are woven of two themes: condemnation and salvation.  God is the active agent in both, responding to what God sees in the people whom God loves and wastes a lot of holy hope on.  It will be helpful if you read all three chapters, because the grace and celebration in these closing verses makes no sense at all outside the context of the awfulness of what comes before.  Some terrible stuff is about to come down.  God is really angry with the people for messing up so badly, and there will be consequences!  I want to make clear that I do not embrace a concept of a capricious God who doles out rewards and punishments.  We who share a society experience natural outcomes of collective wise or unwise choices.  In truth, we only have to turn on the news to get a glimpse of the kinds of consequences that come from our inattention to how God calls us to live together in community. 

  I'll always remember the lecture Marjorie Suchocki gave in Process Theology in which she described the responsibility, and the power we have to magnify the lives of others.  In every instant God is initiating the next potential for our greatest good, and we have the freedom to say "yes" or "no" to God.  Our "yesses" open the way for the next possibility, and our "nos" actually limit God's effectiveness in the world.  In society, our "yes" to God also opens the way for the greatest possible good for those around us.  We have enormous power for good or evil by the way we care for and respond to one another. 

   The first verse of Chapter 2 says, “Gather together, gather, O shameless nation.”  Meaningful change begins with us coming together.  We can divide ourselves in arguments over whether the solution is gun control legislation or better mental health care or more secure school buildings or banning violent video games or teaching parenting skills, and if we do, all we will have accomplished (again) is dividing ourselves.  There is probably truth in all the suggestions, so what if we came together and explored all of them, asking what each of us can do to make a difference.  “Gather together,” he says.

   As Chapter 3 opens it looks like things aren’t going to change much.  The religious and political leaders are like roaring lions and evening wolves, attacking and devouring… the prophets are reckless, faithless people, the priests have profaned what is sacred... they have done violence to the law.  But the character of God has not changed…who still imagines the possibility of a transformed nation and is already planning the party for celebrating their repentance, their metanoia (John’s Greek word), their new way of being, “humble and lowly.”

   Suddenly in the lesson for today, the mood of this prophecy changes, projecting a vision of what it will be like when we come back to God… written in present perfect tense as though it has already been accomplished.  There’s the promise I’ve been looking for!  But wait… how on earth can the Israel of Zephaniah's day sing, in present tense, when the nation had not yet been restored?  How can we sing when our hearts are breaking over a shooting in a school that just happened yesterday?  Don’t ask the people of Sandy Hook to sing today.  Not today, and maybe not for a long time.  It is the present perfect tense of the prophet’s words that get in my way.  

   How can we sing out loud when we are afraid?  “Do not fear, O Zion (Jerusalem); do not let your hands grow weak.  The Lord, your God, is in your midst….” You are not alone.  Even if I believe that God is present in our darkest times (and I do), the darkness is real.  And it is very dark.  But a resurrection preacher knows that while the darkness lingers, it will not consume me.  This darkness which envelopes God’s people will not consume them.  Speaking for God, the prophet reminds us that when there is this much brokenness, the potential for the most profound healing lies ahead.  Prophets didn't waste their words on feel-good messages.  This is difficult stuff.  The healing that we need so badly will require hard work, and a willingness to consider our personal responsibility toward society.  Slowly, surely, hope will find an opening and begin to emerge. 

   What is it then that could make God sing – the same Holy One whose heart is breaking with ours?  Look at the scripture again.  God will sing when the people sing.  Sometimes the people can’t sing.  God waits.  When the hearts that are breaking within us can finally sing, our God whose heart has been breaking, too, will echo back our song!  Nothing could make God happier than for the people to be restored.  As healing occurs, God will rejoice over the people with gladness and renew the people with love.  Today is a little too soon.  But someday when we are ready, God will sing to us from a big old stage in a God-concert, like at a festival.  The prophet said so.  Amen.

A prayer for today:  We are waiting, God.  It is dark in our world, though we have heard the promise that there will be light.  How long will we have to wait?  Are you here with us, or are we really as alone as we feel?  This aching void is almost unbearable.  Give us a sign, a word of hope, a sense of your coming.  Amen.

 

© Rev. Linda Miller, December 15, 2012.

If there is something worthy of repeating, feel free to borrow. Credit is appreciated.

Diggers and Graders

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee… the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.  He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

            'Prepare the way of the Lord,

               make his paths straight.

            "Every valley shall be filled,

               and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

            and the crooked shall be made straight,

               and the rough ways made smooth;

            and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"

                                                            Luke 3:1-6

 

 In June I moved back to my home state of Missouri from Phoenix, Arizona.  There the summer temperatures force people to stay inside like the winter temperatures do here in the Midwest.  In the desert the swimming pool is a favorite place to relax at the end of a summer day as the sun is fading.  During my 16 years in Arizona I entered ministry and helped start a new church.  There was a young family in the congregation who had just built and moved into a new home where they hosted a gathering of people from the church.  They were a family of six, the youngest of whom were two energetic little brothers.  Earlier that week workers had come to dig their swimming pool.  The boys’ eyes nearly popped out when they looked out the window and saw an enormous pile of dirt in the back yard!  Almost nothing excites a little boy more than a big pile of dirt.  Dad’s eyes got nearly as big as theirs imagining the ways he could use that pile of dirt for landscaping in the front yard.  So dad went out with shovel in hand and filled a couple of wheelbarrows full of that dirt with his usual degree of resolve. The boys were out the door right behind him, not wanting to miss one bit of the excitement. Before long he sent the boys back into the house and took off for a while, returning with a rented Bobcat.  A job this size called for a much bigger shovel.  Almost nothing excites a boy or his dad like a big pile of dirt begging to be moved, except perhaps the sight of heavy equipment that can handle the job.

 John the eccentric Baptizer was excited by prospects for the landscape of his day, too.  He could see some changes that needed to be made.  He was specifically talking about the social landscape in which some had all the power and others had none, some prospered and others suffered.  In today’s lesson, John talks about moving dirt, leveling the ground, to make a highway for the God of Israel to travel on.  John is advocating for justice… God’s justice, which is not retribution (getting even), not entirely restorative (putting things back as they were before), but distributive (enough for everyone). 

 The passage above refers to Isaiah 40:3-5  (A voice cries out:  “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”) In those days every tribe of people had its own gods.  There was an ancient Babylonian tradition of building highways for festival parades celebrating the gods of Babylon.  The Israelites would have witnessed this highway construction while they were held captive in Babylon.  Isaiah says that it is time to build a highway for displaying Israel’s God, for all people everywhere to see.  Luke is of course intending for us to understand the road construction image metaphorically. Just how directly do these ancient truths apply?  Take a minute to “look out your window” at our social landscape today.  Where do we see excesses to shave off and where are the valleys we need to fill up in order to make the rough places smooth in our world… to build a road for God to travel on?  

 It is fascinating that again in the second week of Advent we are learning that there are things we must do to prepare for God to come.  All this time we have operated on the assumption that when things get bad enough God will intervene, and God will make the way straight and level things out.  The prophets Isaiah and John are telling us that changing the landscape is our job.  We have to make an opening, a way in the world for God to enter.

 Luke has an interesting way of describing John’s style of baptism, “a baptism of repentence for forgiveness.”  We could easily get caught up in the question of which came first – repentance or forgiveness.  But I suspect that would miss John’s point.  What if they are two parts of the same event?  …Not a cause followed by effect, just change that IS repair, restoration, and reconciliation (which is what happens when there’s forgiveness).  When God forgives us, or we forgive each other, things are put back as they should be, as God designed things.  That might just be the definition of true transformation.  The Greek (Luke’s native language) word for repentance was metanoia--to radically change one's mind, to think differently.  John preached metanoia for the forgiveness of sins, which is repair, restoration and reconciliation.  The Jews believed that in the instant that they repented they were forgiven by God.  John told the people to "bear fruits worthy of repentance."  If you truly have changed your way of thinking, your behavior will reflect it.

 In all honesty, I believe it’s not an either/or proposition. The prophets are pointing us toward a partnership between God and us.  Their point is that we cannot be passive recipients of this amazing grace God offers.  We are required to DO SOMETHING.  Today, what landscape needs some work?  Wait! What if we are the landscape?  What if your life and my life are the highways upon which God is paraded?  What if the world will only be able to see the God we know by how we live?  That, my friends, is precisely where the landscaping needs to begin. 

 It is easier to keep this discussion in the political arena where we can argue about it and throw a little mud and dig in our heels, and find plenty of others to blame and hold responsible for the problems that surround us.  It is easier to find our scapegoats in the worlds of commerce or law.  It is easier to look outside ourselves for blame-placing, isn’t it?  Let’s get them to change.  Or maybe we could just talk about it with our like-minded friends, punctuating our sentences with exclamation marks, spending a lot of energy pontificating, and walk away from the conversation tired from all the talking, and convinced that we’ve settled the matter once and for all.

 The landscaping has to start somewhere, and Isaiah and John say it starts with us. You and I must be willing to tear down the high and mighty places in our lives and level things enough for God to be seen in us.  We can become the highway for our God.  And then while we do our own personal roadwork, I truly do believe we must be willing to step out in humble faith and make the rough places smooth in our neighborhoods, our churches, our schools and our wider community.  We are going to have to live differently if we want to see a difference. 

 A pile of dirt is one thing, but if you’re facing a mountain, a little shovel won't do.  Sometimes a Bobcat isn’t even enough.  Sometimes the unevenness in our living is just too rough to level with a shovel and a wheelbarrow, and what we need is a radically new way of thinking…  John the Baptist had a word for it… metanoia.  Change your mind – your way of thinking.  Repent.  Turn another way, in a new direction.  For forgiveness.  As soon as you change your ways, God forgives, reconciliation begins. 

 Repent from your urge to dominate the partner, friend or lover in your relationship (i.e. needing to win every argument… even the impulse to argue.)  Change your way of thinking.  Families and friends, Repent!  Repent from doing business in a way that turns a profit or saves money at the expense of people, and at the expense of your integrity.  Businesses, Repent!  Think in a whole new way about where God would have you place the greater value. 

 Repent from greed.  Start thinking instead about how much of anything you really need.  A favorite memory of my dear friend Ellen is the way she used to say (in a southern accent) to her little boy, “Now Danny, you’ve got your “wanter” going again!”  Susceptible as we all are to the advertising that grabs our attention constantly, especially in this season of giving and receiving, our very own “wanters” tend to suffer from Danny’s affliction.  “Repent,” John says.  Turn and go another way.  I know… by now you think this preacher has gone to meddlin’.  But this is where John seems to have been directing us.  Still today there are mountains of power and valleys of powerlessness, and some of us inhabit pinnacles while others live in the depths.  There’s got to be something we can do about it.

 Diggers were the delight of my friends’ first-born child.  Their home was the first to be built in a new subdivision.  This meant they had the beauty of unspoiled open spaces… for a little while, until the heavy equipment moved in and began to change the landscape. Every piece of earth-moving equipment Blake could see from the window inspired delight in this little boy and he pronounced each one a 'Digger.' Development requires change you know, and the developer has to be able to look at green rolling hills and envision the streets, electricity, water and sewer systems that will transform them into a community.  That is how God, according to the prophets, imagines us.  With the eye of a builder, God looks at us in our raw form and sees the possibility of community.  First the ground has to be prepared, a road built.  If we are to prepare the way for God, we have to be diggers & graders in an uneven world.   If we are to become highways on which others can see the salvation of our God, we must defer to the Builder’s blueprints.  Lord, God of hosts, be with us yet! Amen.

 

A prayer for today:  Humiliated, God… I was embarrassed and humiliated beyond words when my friend arrived the day before I was expecting her, and I hadn’t changed the sheets on the guest bed, and she could hardly walk through my house for all the clutter left in the wake of playtime.  Sweet Holy Child, give me wisdom and discipline to be prepared for your arrival.  Not just so I can save face with you, but so that I don’t run out of time to clear a path for you to walk through my life. I want you walking through my life. I need discipline to stay on task with the work of making ready for you… because ready or not, you are on your way like every other baby who’s ever been born.  Come quickly, Little One, come.  Amen.

© Rev. Linda Miller, December 15, 2012.

Feel free to borrow. Credit is appreciated.

Thanks to Blake for inspiring the sermon title, and to Danny & Ellen for inspiring me to check my "wanter."

 

There will be signs… always.

 

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.  People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.  Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.  Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”  ~ Luke 21.25-28 

  “When is Santa coming?  How many days till Christmas?”  We must have hammered our parents with the big question daily.  Back in those days Daddy went down to the timber or by the creek to find our tree.  They weren’t perfectly shaped like the ones the Salvation Army sold in the grocery store parking lot in town, but the sap of our little trees was still running, so the smell of juniper filled our little house.  The presence of the tree just raised the question more urgently.  All tucked in at night, we would bound out of bed to stare at the tree again and then run to ask Mother, “How many more days?”  “It’s still too early,” she would say.  “It hasn’t even snowed.”  “When it snows…”  My little brother asked, “… will Santa come when it snows?”  “Yes,” she said, and then she scooped us up onto the divan, one on each side of her, and read to us “The Night Before Christmas”… “the moon on the crest of the new fallen snow gave the luster of midday to objects below….”  I guess it must have satisfied us for a little while.  All we really needed was a sign… something to watch for so we would know when to expect him.

 Then one night while we were sleeping, it snowed, a thick fluffy blanket of white covering everything, disguising the shapes of the bushes, sparkling like diamonds in the new morning light.  My little tow-headed brother Norman came running from the bedroom, to the window, to the Christmas tree, into the kitchen that crisp December morning, his face red as he gasped for breath between sobs of disappointment.  It was the kind of crying that follows terrible events, so I immediately looked for blood.  Mother dropped a pan into the sink and drying her hands on her apron, rushed to him.  “What’s the matter, honey?” she asked.  I noticed her looking for blood, too, and felt gratified that my response matched my mother’s.  His little chest caved as he grabbed a breath and wailed, “He come-d, but he didn’t bring me nothing.” There was snow… a sign… and it was an unfulfilled prophecy.  That can be heartbreaking!

 Advent begins this first Sunday of December, and is a time of waiting, full of anticipation, for the coming of the Christ to be a light in our darkness.  Our scripture lessons for the next few weeks will be leading up to the much-loved, long-awaited story of the nativity.  Matthew and Luke each have an account of the birth of Jesus, recorded early in their narratives.  But the lectionary scripture for this first Sunday of Advent 2012 is from the 21^st chapter of Luke’s gospel.  It appears late in the account of Jesus’ life and ministry, just before the events leading up to his arrest and trial and execution.  This is not a sweet, comforting scripture.  (We expect sweet; we need comforting.  That’s why we love Christmas!)  Instead it heralds chaotic confusion, destruction and death.  (For context, read the entire 21^st chapter of Luke.)  How on earth did this passage get into our Advent lessons?   This is pure apocalyptic terror – the kind that teases the human appetite for intrigue with fear of just how bad things really can become.  Evil is.  We hurt each other.  Nations fight, etc, etc.  And so because we love intrigue, for as long as there has been prophecy, we humans have chased after signs to validate our suspicion that things really are worse than ever, to prove that this then, must be the time when Jesus will return.  Apocalyptic themes tease our hungers for intrigue, for mystery.  We interpret them as eschatological prophecies – predictions of what things will be like at the end of time.  One of the dearest women from my childhood was prone to recounting all the natural and human-made disasters in the news and saying, “I think surely this is the end-time, don’t you?”  She had been taught that this is when Jesus will come again.  Apocalyptic scripture was written for a different purpose -- to reveal truths – it is revelation, which is not about the end of time, but rather about meaning for THIS TIME.  NOW.  So if we can trust Luke to have been true to the nature of prophecy, this passage in Luke 21 was a kind of code language offering wisdom and understanding for the people of that day.  It happens to apply today as well.  Truth is about to emerge if we will just pay attention... deep attention.  There is nothing frivolous here.  Pay attention.

 How long have we been waiting?  For how many years have we been bugging our God for signs telling us when God will come again?  And for how long have we interpreted God’s second coming as Jesus literally coming back in the flesh to earth?  After all this time, how will we know when it is time? 

 Paul authored the earliest writings in what became the New Testament canon.  He, and we can assume some of his contemporaries, could not accept that the vibrant, vital ministry Jesus established was over, finished by his public execution – this one they loved and believed in and followed.  The Jesus Movement had just caught fire, and was spreading even after news of the crucifixion rocked them all.  Jesus had been a gifted, wise storyteller, and the leitmotif that ran through his parables was the promised Kingdom of God.  This idea wasn’t new.  It wove its way through the sayings of the ancient prophets of Jesus’ Jewish heritage.  He would have heard in Temple the words of the prophet Jeremiah that appear in our lectionary for today:  “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.  In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.  And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’”  ~Jeremiah 33:14-16

 Paul and others like him, devout Jews who became early followers in the Jesus Movement, would also have heard the writings of the prophets read in Temple.  It makes sense, then, that their human appetites for intrigue would have led them to draw on ancient prophecies as “proof” that Jesus of Nazareth was the one the prophets were talking about all along. No doubt that is why they so often referred in their own writings to the prophet's sayings as evidence that Jesus was the one. This made the prophets predictors of the future, when the ancient prophets actually were writing about things happening in their own time, interpreting their current events in light of where God was in all of it, how God was at work, and what the people should do.  Still today, we have trouble shaking off the idea that prophecy is prediction of the future.  Prophecy is interpretation of the present in the hope we can learn from it and choose a wiser future.  Prophecy is revealed truth about what’s happening NOW. 

 

So this morning, on the first Sunday of Advent, 2012, I have a new question.  Why are we waiting for Jesus to appear someday in power and great glory when the risen Christ has been seen and heard, over and over again defying the power of death to contain the Spirit that is life?  Here is what makes me say that:  I read in the Luke passage from the lectionary for today, “…distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves,” and I think of the people devastated by Hurricane Sandy, and I think of my cousin Alan North who as a retired (disabled) fire fighter is there as a volunteer, helping people put the pieces of their lives back together.  I know a little about Alan’s faith, and I know he is doing this work in the name of Christ as a disciple of Jesus. That’s what it means to be the body of Christ in the world in 2012.  We are the flesh on Christ’s bones.  We are the Incarnation.  Today the Son of Man appears in this northeastern cloud of destruction, in the form of Alan and other volunteers.  In the lives of hurting people, Christ appears with power and great glory.   Why after all this time are we waiting for God to break into human history in some supernatural way when the Christmas story is about God breaking into history in the most ordinary way, as a tiny impoverished baby?  Why are we waiting for the “second coming” of Christ when according to the messenger at the empty tomb in Mark’s account (16:7), the risen Jesus promised those early followers that he was not gone from them, but instead would go before them and be waiting for them where their work continues?  Still today Christ goes before us.  And as Matthew tells it (28:19-20) Jesus promises in person "I am with you always."  Present tense. Why are we still waiting for God to show up when God has been here all along, and we just failed to notice?  Have we refused to hear the prophecy?  When will we get it?  When will we stop looking for signs and see right here before us the only signs that will actually satisfy our human appetite for intrigue... signs of newness of life everywhere which are evidence that God has never left us and is always right there in the midst of our despair weaving the frazzled, frayed ends of our lives back together again?  How bold a sign are we waiting for?  In fact, when things get as bad as they possibly can be, that is precisely when, if we are paying attention, deep attention, we see with our own eyes “the Son of Man (Luke’s nickname for Jesus) coming in a cloud (the cloud of chaos and dread?) with power and great glory (that will tame the chaos into new order).”

 To paraphrase Luke’s conclusion in verse 28, “So when things are so awful that your spirit is tormented with doom, stand up tall and raise your heads.  Pay deep attention, because God is already at work here.  Your redemption is near.”

 So what if I’m wrong?  What if apocalyptic prophecy is a forewarning of a future event, and not a revelation of meaning for today?  Some may be worried for my eternal wellbeing – that I may go to hell when I die – but I have a hunch they are wrong, that we have been wrong for centuries about fear-mongering being the way to our salvation.  Where’s the “good news” in that?  The bad news is this… all our attention to what will happen when we die has caused us to miss the redemptive truth that our salvation is already accomplished.  We just need to pay deep attention to the brokenness around us and find ways to join God in the work God has already begun right here under our cover of darkness.  We just need to fill all the days we have left in this life being agents of God’s salvation for a world that waits with longing for the coming of the light.  There always have been signs.  There always will be signs that humankind is capable of interrupting God’s peace.  So light-bearers, pay attention.  Deep attention.  Amen.

 

A prayer for today:  Every evening it's the same: put the key in the deadbolt, turn and lock; check the windows; put out the cat; leave a light on... all those routines to feel safe and fall asleep in peace.  But some night, in the midst of my security, you will tiptoe into my house, rearranging the furniture, cracking the combination of my heart, and ransacking all my fears; then softly whistling, "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus," you will slip out, leaving the door standing wide open that I might follow you into the kingdom.  Come, Lord Jesus! Amen.  (Author unknown, but greatly admired.)

© Rev. Linda Miller, December 2, 2012.

Feel free to borrow.  Credit is appreciated.

I recommend for your reading pleasure "The First Christmas" co-authored by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan.

a way in the desert…

  Saturday night I attended a dedication service for a new fellowship hall at the little country Southern Baptist church of my childhood.  It was a great celebration of new things God is doing in that little congregation.  I saw old friends (meaning childhood friends – though we are also much older now as well).  One of them during his opening remarks as song leader, proclaimed it a beautiful evening, with promise of great food and fun, a great cause for celebration in this church, “And now,” George said, ”if we could just get rid of those Democrats!”  The thunderous laughter drowned out my voice as I said to him, ”Be careful, George.  You never know where you might find a Democrat – even in this church.”  I don’t know which stirred more ire in me, his comment or the laughter which registered majority approval of it.  This was three days before an election, in a church where a 501(c)3 status is supposed to be protected by offering equal time for partisan statements to be balanced, and for no one representing the congregation to tell anyone else how to vote. 

 I realized that my mother, whom I love and respect very much, sitting (appropriately) to my right, was wanting my attention.  I looked and she was shaking her head, “no,” to tell me not to say anything more.  Instantly my memory played a childhood tape of her voice telling me to “Pipe down!”  She was brought up in an era during which children spoke only when spoken to and women didn’t have much of a voice at all.  So a girl child was likely to embarrass her parents if not tightly controlled.  No doubt this outspoken girl child did embarrass them now and then.

 One of the most powerful means of controlling children was (and still is for many parents) through the church.  If the church could convince a child that what God said supported what the parent said, what higher power was there for a child to consult?  Guilt and fear provided added coercion.  We attended church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night.  In addition I belonged to Girls Auxiliary which met monthly, attended Sunday school weekly, went with my mother to monthly Women’s Missionary Union meetings where I could overhear the adult echoes of what I also caught from the indoctrination designed for children.  In the summer we had Vacation Bible School, and at least annually there was a week-long revival meeting with preaching every night, and a strong emphasis on the altar call at the end of each service.  This was the chance (perhaps your last chance, in the event you are killed in a car accident on the way home from church) to see that your soul would be saved from eternal incendiary torment, securing your salvation by walking up to the front of the church to make a public profession of your faith in Jesus who bled and died specifically for you, because you are so sinful.  There was usually much emotion involved as the guilt was released by this relatively simple public act… simple but necessary for one’s salvation.  I still remember the relief I felt from shedding the burden of my sin as I walked down the aisle at the age of 9.  For those who had already “been saved” there was always the possibility of coming forward to rededicate one’s life to the Lord…  because of course there’s always the likelihood of backsliding. 

 In time I wondered about this rededication thing in light of the disparaging instruction I also received in my Protestant training against the Catholic practice of confession.  Why was walking up to the front of the church and kneeling on the hard floor with one’s forearms on the front pew, praying and crying, any more redeeming or acceptable to God than sitting in a confessional with a screen separating you from the priest while you spelled out the sin for which you needed forgiveness?  In fact it seemed to me the Catholics were onto something asking folks to be specific about their sin and assigning a particular penance as reparation, which might encourage them to think twice before repeating the breach.   Much later I learned about the history of bitter competition between Catholics and Protestants.  One of my best childhood friends was Catholic, making this whole thing a very big deal to me.  I loved her and sought permission to go on loving her.  I visited her church a time or two, and thought the sanctuary with its statues and artwork was mysterious and lovely, and knew deep down I should probably be ashamed for admiring it.  That may have been my first inkling that often what is most mysterious and lovely to me will be labeled by someone else as shameful.

 Saturday night’s event left me feeling voiceless, and reminded me of why it was so important to leave the place of my upbringing and find my own place in the world where my gifts could be set free and my voice could be heard.  In my heart I had never been able to accept some of the things I was taught through my church, and yet my faith was strong and deep, the very center of my being.  The God I knew was compassionate and forgiving and leaned toward grace, not harsh and condemning like some of God’s people were.  I really got the salvation story and understood it as a story of how God throughout history had been willing to take back the people of Israel and forgive their unfaithfulness.  God always forgave BEFORE they changed their ways, with little evidence they ever would.  It was preemptive love.  (Thanks to my colleague Rev. Rob Carr for that image.)  God’s love always trumped their sinfulness.  Love led the reconciliation and the people followed.  More times than not they failed again and went astray.  And again God was waiting to receive them back.  This surely was why the mystic Jesus of Nazareth told the story we know as the prodigal son, about a father who forgave without requiring an apology or reparation, and went overboard (according to his jealous brother) throwing a huge party to welcome him home.  And this surely is how we are supposed to treat one another.

 I first had a sense of calling when I was very young, about 5 years old, although I didn’t know what to call it at the time.  I was sitting at my father’s desk as I remember, looking out the window at the way the sunlight played on the leaves of a spirea bush, marveling at how amazing our Creator God was to have made all this, and I thought, “God has something special for me to do someday.”  I remember a profound sense of purpose.  It didn’t go away, and I always was kind of paying attention for what it might be.  In our little Baptist church there were no women in ministry to model what it might be like for me to be the pastor, so I imagined being a preacher’s wife.  They were almost always talented, playing piano or singing in church, and supporting what their husbands did in the role of minister.  By the time I was in Junior High I had learned enough about missionaries to know that the Baptists let girls do that, so I imagined being a missionary to the most remote corner of the earth.  I became a “Junior Foreign Mission Volunteer” with my sites on Africa. 

  By the time I left home to go to college I was unable to incorporate the fearful, threatening parts of Baptist doctrine into my belief system, and it would be years before I could finally understand God’s beckoning to me as a “calling.”  First I had to find my way to a church that had a place for women in ministry.  I discovered my faith “home” at First Christian Church in Carrollton, MO as my marriage was ending.  It was a time for new beginings.  The first Sunday my daughters and I attended there were WOMEN serving communion right up there in front of God and everybody!  The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) would even ordain women!  I became a Disciple there, and joined another Disciples congregation in Kansas City when my daughters and I made our home there.  Soon I toyed with the idea of attending seminary, but decided to focus all my energies on rearing them and providing for them as a single mom.

  Finally, years later as my 50^th birthday approached, I yielded to that voice that had been a companion to me since childhood, saying, “I get it, God.  I won’t be fully alive, and my passions won’t be set free until I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.  I’ll be a preacher.”  In my application to Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, CA, I wrote, “The moment that I said "yes" to God's call to ministry five years ago, I understood it to be a call to preaching.  Very often I heard, as we all do, about how much harm the church has caused throughout history.  People are hurting because of early life experiences with a Christianity that taught them fear and shame.  I want to offer an alternative voice, with a view of Christianity that is full of grace, hope, promise, and possibilities.  We need preachers that understand the gospel in a new way.  I am called to be one of them. “

  And so here, in this space, I raise my voice…. No doubt you will notice traces of Progressive Christianity, an openness to and excitement about the many ways we humans have of experiencing the Mystery I call God, an appreciation for Emergent Christianity, and you may find me referring to the Process Theology which I discovered at Claremont, and which provides a language for articulating the faith that has been developing in my heart, mind and spirit all my life.  From time to time I may recommend a book or an author, and I will welcome your recommendations as well.  I hope these accounts of one person's faith journey will be meaningful to you, and in case they cause you to reflect on your own, I'll welcome your comments.  Blessings on the way.  Lin