Tell Me about You

A teenage sitter arrives to watch three grade school children.  The parents are in a hurry to get to their dinner reservation and quickly explain bedtime for all is 9:00, no exceptions.  The parents leave and the sitter settles into the evening by keeping the kids entertained.  At 9:00 she sends them to bed and begins to text her friends.  Just then she hears one of the children creeping down the stairs.  “Get back in bed” she insists.  A few minutes later the same child, moving as quietly as possible, tries to come downstairs again, but is caught and sent back.  This happens a third and then a fourth time.  The sitter is getting frustrated when suddenly the doorbell rings.  “I am Mrs. Brown from next door.  Is my son here?”  “No”, says the sitter.  Then a voice from upstairs yells down, “Mom, I’m up here, but the sitter won’t let me leave!”

For what it’s worth, this morning’s gospel reading is the only information we have about Jesus from the time when, as a toddler, his family settles in Nazareth to when he appears before John to be baptized.  All we have is this one story to give us clues about what most certainly was a formative twenty-five year span in his life. 

We want to know about the childhood lives of great people.  We long to learn about the experiences that carved out who they became.  Mason Locke Weems didn’t quite understand this when he set out in 1800 to write a biography about George Washington, who had died the year earlier.  The book was wildly popular, but the reading public demanded to know more about Washington’s childhood.  Since Weems had no real way to garner such information, he simply made up stories to demonstrate a link between Washington’s private virtue and public greatness.  The most endearing and enduring of these myths involved a cherry tree, which first appeared in the book’s fifth edition published in 1806.  “I cannot tell a lie” satiated the American public’s hunger to know more about the childhood of their deeply admired leader.

Early Christians thirsted to learn more about Jesus’ early years so about 150 years after his life someone wrote what is now referred to as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.  As one commentator puts is, it portrays the child Jesus as part healer, part genius, and part brat.  Here is a short summary of just a few of its stories:

·   The infant Jesus, while lying in the cradle, speaks and tells his mother he is the Son of God.

·   A sorcerer turns a man into a mule.  When Mary learns of it, she puts baby Jesus on the mule’s back and it instantly returns into a man.

·   A leper is healed by washing in Jesus’ bathwater. 

·   At the age of seven Jesus makes various animal figures out of clay and brings them to life.

·   Joseph spends two years making a throne for the king of Jerusalem, but in the end it is too small, so Jesus miraculously makes it larger.

·   When a snake bites a boy, Jesus orders it to suck back the poison.  The boy is cured and the serpent bursts open.

·   Jesus is accused of killing a boy by throwing him off a roof.  He brings the child back to life who then exonerates him.

·   A child knocks over a pitcher of water that Jesus has fetched.  Jesus curses the child, whose body immediately withers and dies.

·   When Jesus is sent to school he ends up teaching the schoolmaster.  When a second teacher raises his hand to strike Jesus for insubordination, that teacher falls dead.

·   After Jesus turns twelve and remains behind in the Temple, he begins to conceal his miraculous powers until the time after he is baptized.

As we say today, these stories, and the many others like them, simply don’t pass the smell test for authenticity. 

Although Luke’s story is all we have in the gospels, it tells us much.  First, we learn Mary and Joseph made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem each year for the Passover festival. Just like our vacations today, a family pilgrimage was expensive.  Food and lodging cost money.  The Temple had a required system of sacrifices and offerings.  Perhaps most costly was lost economic opportunity.  If Joseph was not working he was not earning a living.  Still, these two parents deeply valued the religious and spiritual dimension of life and it was for them a priority.

Next we learn these journeys were not made in isolation.  They were communal events involving extended family and neighbors.  That Mary and Joseph left Jerusalem believing their twelve-year-old was walking with others suggests Jesus grew up in a close-knit community where numerous people contributed much to his formation. 

One of the most important things a parish family offers is a place where multi-generational relationships can flourish.  Our seasoned members are rich with wisdom and perspective while our young members keep us hopeful and engaged.  I am always thrilled when I see these relationships develop organically over the course of our being God’s people together.  I remember when Polly Freel used to make her way around the Nave floor to pass the peace with Doc Thomas.  I once asked him how the relationship got started and he said he had no idea.  Polly simply chose to greet him.  But I can tell you this, passing the Peace with Polly got Doc to church week in and week out, even when he was tired, weak, and in pain.

Here is one final thing we learn from today’s reading: In his exchange with his parents, we get a glimpse of Jesus trying to work out his own sense of identity.  He knows he is a person: the son of Mary and Joseph.  He knows he has a place: he is from Nazareth.  And he knows he has something to do: he is a carpenter in training.  Beyond all of this, he is also pondering a deeper sense of identity and purpose, which he expresses as “I must be in my Father’s house.”  He is engaged in the very human challenge of trying to discern why he is here, what he is supposed to do, and what difference his life will make.  He will continue to live with these questions for another decade and a half until he presents himself to John to be baptized.

Jesus’ quest is a gentle reminder of this important, on-going work we all must do.  If I asked you to tell me about you, most likely you would pass on information about what you do, who is in your life, where you are from, and so forth.  But can these surface details and facts alone describe who you are?

You are unique.  No one else is exactly like you.  Some of who you are was predetermined by your biology (nature).  Other aspects of you developed as you related to the environment around you (nurture).  Our Christian faith reminds us that God has been at work in and through all of this; that you are who you as a result of God’s love for you; that you are special to God.

So who are you?  What are your core values?  How would you describe your core sense of identity?  If you find yourself stammering when trying to articulate an answer to these questions, you are not alone.  Many people may never have had the opportunity to engage in meaningful self-reflection in order to construct a way to understand and then describe who they are.  If God has created you to be you, and if you are not able to say to yourself “This is who I am”, how can you evaluate what kind of job you are doing at being you? 

If these questions intrigue or puzzle you, I hope you will join me on Wednesday evenings in Lent was we create a space to do the work of exploring and reflecting on who we are.

Luke’s story gives us a glimpse of Jesus learning and growing.  The early church denounced the heresy of Gnosticism, which, among other things, held that Jesus’ brain contained all the knowledge of God from birth.  The early church said no, Jesus had to grow; he had to learn as we have to learn.  Beyond the story of his birth and today’s reading, it was not Luke’s purpose to describe how Jesus became who he turned out to be.  Luke was intent on telling us about the life of Jesus after his baptism, about his teachings, his death, and his resurrection.  All he says about the years before this is Jesus went with his parents back to Nazareth where increased in wisdom and years, and gained favor in the eyes of God and those who knew him.

And that remains a good task for each of us, no matter how old you are.  As you increase in years, may you grow in wisdom, gain esteem in the eyes of others, and be a pleasing delight in the sight of God who created you to be you.

Sing a Lullaby

See the child that Mary bore

On her lap so softly sleeping

In a stable cold and poor

Ox and ass their vigil keeping

Sing lullaby, sing lullaby

My own dear son, my child

Lullaby, sing lullaby

Lullaby, my little baby

Flights of angels ‘round His head

Sing Him joyful hymns of greeting

Peace on earth, goodwill to men

Each to each the song repeating

Shepherds kneeling by His bed

Offer homage without measure

Wise men, by a bright star led

Bring Him gifts of richest treasure

You may not know the name Yip Harburg, but surely everyone here knows this lyric he penned:

Somewhere over the rainbow

way up high,

there’s a land that I heard of

once in a lullaby.

Lullabies have been around for a long, long time.  The earliest recorded lullaby is a Babylonia text over 4,000 years old.  While its aim was to get a baby to sleep, its message was rather menacing.  It chastised the baby for disturbing the household god with its crying and also contained a list of repercussions if silence did not follow.  Many cultures have lullabies with dark overtones.  The Luo people of western Kenya sing “Rock, rock, rock,” to their infants before starkly warning, “The baby who cries will be eaten by a hyena.”  Think about our own western tradition of singing “Rock-a-bye-baby” where wind and crying result in a cradle falling from a tree branch!

Well, while some lullaby lyrics are more child-appropriate than others, Nina Perry, in a BBC article notes, “Wherever you go in the world, women use the same tones, the same sort of way of singing to their babies…  Rhythmically, there are shared patterns… giving them a characteristic swinging or rocking motion.”  All of this has a way of mimicking a baby’s experience in the mother’s womb. 

Lullabies function in at least five different ways:

  They build a bond between parent and child.

  They pass down cultural knowledge and traditions.

  They help to develop communication skills.

  They regulate emotions and behavior.

  They help a baby fall asleep.

One study of premature babies concluded gentle music helps to slow down the heart rate and improves feeding and sleeping.  Another study determined a live voice is more beneficial than recorded music.  Still another study found lullabies enhance an infant’s neurological development.

Fred Rogers (of Mr. Rogers fame) observed “All of us have had the experience of hearing a tune from childhood and having that melody evoke a memory or a feeling.  The music we hear early on tends to stay with us all our lives.”  Would it surprise you to know that lullabies help hospice patients to transition from daylight to darkness? 

Do you have a memory of someone singing you to sleep? 

The beautiful anthem we heard moments ago highlights how the lullaby has figured prominently in the Christian spirituality surrounding this night.  Angels praising, shepherds knelling, gift-bearing travelers from the east, all of this awe and wonder and still our attention is drawn to the most human of all experiences: a mother singing softly to her newborn. 

At last Saturday’s beautiful handbell concert, Al Reese introduced Cathy Moklebust’s arrangement of Still, Still, Still, saying it evoked the image of “softly falling snow, quiet dreaming, and the great mystery of God made flesh”.  You may remember he encouraged us to listen with our eyes closed, which I did and, true to his words, I was caught up in softly falling snow, quiet dreaming, and the great mystery of God made flesh.

As I listen to Mary’s Lullaby I hold it next to my faith that all things have been created through God’s Son.  The incredible power that launched the Big Bang, the Vision who dreamed up the quark, the One who is All and beyond All and largely incomprehensible to our human mind became flesh.  God needed to be held and succored and sung to in order that the heart rate might slow, digestion might improve, neurological pathways might develop, communication skills be learned, and cultural traditions assimilated.  Is there any better way to describe this than “the great mystery of God made flesh”?

I wonder how many of us have oriented our religious selves around coming to God.  We come before God with our petitions in prayer, our confessions, our praises, and our thanksgivings.  We come to God.  This is how we do religion.  But tonight suggests there might be something we are overlooking: God comes to us.  God comes to us through the unexpected visit of a friend.  What does a lullaby to our God sound like in this moment?  God comes to us through a soft and serene majestic sunrise.  What does our lullaby to God sound like in this moment?  God comes to us in the person who desires a new beginning in life, perhaps by attending tonight’s service.  What does our lullaby to God sound like in this moment?

The great mystery of God made flesh reminds me of my need to be gentle and tender and soothing and nurturing in this life.  So much of what God is seeking to do in our world begins as something vulnerable, as something in need of care, of compassion, of a lullaby. 

Earl Wynne was one of those solid, salt-of-the-earth good guys I have been blessed to know in my ministry.  He stood at the front door of the church, greeted every person by name, and escorted the women on his arm to their pew all the while shushing the choir and clergy out of the way, saying “make room for the paying customers!”  His association with the parish began in the 1950’s when he and his young bride first attended a service on a hot, humid Richmond Sunday in July.  Because the church was not air-conditioned the usher encouraged him to remove his jacket so he would be more comfortable.  That simple act of gracious hospitality convinced Earl not only to join the church, but to carry out a decades-long ministry of greeting people.  Earl would never say the usher sang a lullaby to him, but tonight that is what I would call it.  Earl and his wife, Juliet, were in a vulnerable place looking to begin something new in their lives.  The church received them with the gentleness and care of a lullaby.

When was the last time you realized God came to you?  How did you respond?  What did you do?  Do you think there are times God comes to you, but you fail to recognize it?  If so, what might you do to be more attentive?  When, where, and how do you sing a lullaby to the vulnerable new thing God is doing?  And what about you?  What vulnerable new thing might God be seeking to do in your life?  What does your lullaby to it sound like?

Keep on Singing!

I have a lot of Christmas music on my home computer.  How much?  Well, enough for five days of non-stop playing; 1,750 songs!  Please don’t tell the Bishop, but I start to listen to Christmas music even before Thanksgiving.  A few weeks ago I was making a purchase and asked the cashier how she was doing.  “I don’t think I can take much more of this,” she said.  “What is the problem,” I asked, suspecting that the volumes of holiday shoppers in foul moods had worn her down.  “I can’t stand the Christmas music playing all the time in our store.  I hear the same songs over and over all day.”  I could offer her no words of comfort.

When an artist records a song already released by another artist it is referred to as a ‘cover.’  Here are the top five most-covered Christmas songs of all time:

#5  The First Noel – 12,476 covers

#4  The Christmas Song – 13, 208 covers

#3  Jingle Bells – 19,080 covers

#2  White Christmas – 20,721 covers

#1  Silent Night – 26,496 covers

Did you know that Jingle Bells has appeared in 373 movie soundtracks? 

Here are the five most requested Christmas songs this year:

#5  Fairytale of New York by The Pogues

#4  Mistletoe by Justin Bieber

#3  Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee

#2  It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas by Michael Bublé

#1  All I want for Christmas is you by Mariah Carey.

According the play count feature on iTunes, my most-played holiday song is The Cowboys Christmas Ball by The Killers, which I have listened to a whopping 58 times.

One of the unique features to Luke’s gospel is its emphasis on music, or what has become music.  In today’s reading Mary sings when she is greeted by her cousin Elizabeth.  Zechariah sings when his son John is born.  Angels sing to shepherds.  And finally, Simeon sings when he sees the infant Jesus in the Temple for the first time.  Scholars debate the origins of these ancient texts.  Did the original characters compose these hymns on the spot, or were they developed over time, and if so, by who?  In the interest of Christmas cheer, I’ll spare you the details of their discussions.  Still, it is worth noting that Matthew, Mark, and John either knew nothing of these songs or deemed them not significant enough to include in their gospels.  We are indebted to Luke for recording them.

More important than where they come from is what they mean and how they function.  This morning we hear the words of Mary’s Magnificat.  At its heart it is a song of praise and joy: “My soul magnifies the Lord!”  But it is also deeply rooted in another traditional aspect of music: it is an act of resistance.  Singing is a powerful way to protest when you do not have the power to change the way things are.

Are you familiar with the traditional call-and-response carol Mary had a baby? 

Mary had a baby (yes Lord)

  Mary had a baby (yes, my Lord)

Mary had a baby (yes Lord)

The people keep a-comin’ and the train done gone.

Sung by slaves, the reference to the train is an allusion to the Underground Railroad and by including it in the story of Jesus it served to inspire people to throw off the shackles of bondage and to hope for freedom and a better life. 

Think about the Von Trapp family singing Edelweiss as the Nazis are set to take over Austria.  That was an act of resistance to be sure.  The Civil Rights movement was fueled by songs like We shall overcome.  The Velvet Revolution, the non-violent transition of power in Czechoslovakia that was the precursor to the fall of the Berlin Wall, began when a small group of people started to meet on Monday evenings at St. Nikolai Church to sing.  Over the course of a couple of months their numbers swelled to over 300,000 thousand people, more than half the country.  When the secret police were asked why they did not crush the movement, they replied they had no contingency plan for a song!

Mary too sings in this tradition:

God has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud

in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful

from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.

These are not words describing a historical reality at the time, but lyrics of protest and resistance.  In no uncertain terms, Mary proclaims that the world is not right and God is doing something about it.

We say Advent is a time for waiting, but with the waiting there is a strong element of protest and resistance.  Our Advent readings and hymns proclaim that something is wrong with this world.  This season highlights the darkness all around us while holding out hope for God’s Light. 

Much of the spirituality of Lent revolves around the realization there is something wrong with me.  It focuses on the changes I need to make in order to live God’s dream for me.  If we look inward during Lent, in Advent we look outward.  We look outward and we see the hatred which infects our world, the violence that plagues our society, the sin which is racism in our land, our lack of care for the lost, the least, and the lonely.  We see it and we sing about it.

O come, o come, Desire of nations,

bind in one the hearts of all mankind;

bid thou our sad divisions cease,

and be thyself our King of Peace.

Rejoice!  Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

Come thou long expected Jesus,

born to set thy people free;

from our fears and sins release us,

let us find our rest in thee.

Comfort, comfort ye my people,

  speak ye peace, thus saith our God.

comfort those who sit in darkness,

  mourning ‘neath the sorrows’ load.

Speak ye to Jerusalem,

  of the peace that waits for them;

Tell her that her sins I cover,

  and her warfare now is over.

O Zion, that bringest good tidings,

  get thee up to the heights and sing!...

he stands in the midst of nations,

  and he will right the wrong.

He shall feed his flock like a shepherd,

the lambs he’ll gently hold,

to pastures of peace he’ll led them,

  and bring them safe to his fold.

He brings God’s rule, O Zion,

he comes from heaven above.

His rule is peace and freedom,

and justice, truth, and love.

Lift high your praise resounding,

for grace and joy abounding.

Oh, blest is Christ that came

in God’s most holy name.

Let the endless bliss begin,

  by weary saints foretold,

when right shall triumph over wrong,

  and truth shall be extolled.

Have I made my point?

Gracia Grindal, a Lutheran hymn writer, composed We light the Advent Candles as a way of explaining the meaning of this popular liturgical act.  The first line of her hymn says, “We light the Advent candles against the winter light.” Now, she could have written “We light the Advent candles because of the winter light” or “during the winter light” but by using “against” she proclaims this season to be a protest of the darkness around us.  We sing because we hope for something better.  We sing for change. We sing, because we cannot give up or give in.  We sing because we believe.  We sing for strength and for courage.  We sing because we know a new world is coming.  We sing!

So let’s retrace one last time our journey through this Advent season:

· On the first Sunday of Advent we said “Take Advent Slowly!”

· On the second Sunday we said, “Change Your Clothes!”

· Last week we said, “Your Life Matters!”

· How about we draw Advent to a close with this:  “Keep on Singing!”

Your Life Matters

For the life of me I can’t figure out why “crowds” of people went out into wilderness to listen to John.  Beyond being a difficult walk, beyond the lack of amenities (think no Starbucks), and beyond the insufferable heat, who wants to be told off by a crazy man?  What would the response be at announcement time if I said, “OK folks, we have scheduled a twenty mile hike into the Dismal Swamp so that we can meet a religious fanatic who will tell us we are sinners, call us names, and let us know our time on top is just about up”?  My hunch is there would not be a long wait at the sign-up sheet in the Parish Hall.

Every Advent we get not one, but two – TWO! – Sundays to focus on John.  One commentator calls him “an irritant in the midst of Advent”.  Another remarks, “If this is his idea of good news, I’m not sure I want to hear the bad news”.  I tend to think of him as being the harbinger of fruitcakes and ugly ties.  Just as you can count on getting a couple of unwanted presents at Christmas, so too you can count of John in Advent. 

I think his appeal is this: John preached a message of hope.  He promised something new and good and restorative was about to happen.  Back in Jerusalem, back in the Temple, back in the halls of privilege and power, the message was “Everything is fine just the way it is.  The system is working for us, so let’s not mess with it.”  The problem was for most people everything was not fine.  Everywhere they turned someone was putting the screws to them – politicians, religious leaders, bankers, Roman mercenaries.  The “crowd” believed deeply in God’s promise for a better world and they yearned for it happen.  John was a lone voice saying this world is broken and God is about to send someone to fix it.  At its core, it is a message of hope and it was gladly received by everyday people like you and me.

But here is the rub: along with his message of hope John said something else, “God is about to do a new thing, but you are not ready for it.”  Why weren’t they ready?  Did they need to improve their technology and infrastructure?  Did the streets need swept and storefronts given a fresh coat of paint?      Did someone need to compose coronation music?  What was the holdup?  Here is what John said: “You have got to change yourself before God will change the world.” 

As you might imagine, each person responded with a question: “What do I have to change?  Think of all the things John said:

· You must go to church every Sunday.

· You must tithe 10% of your income.

· You must pray for an hour a day.

· You must convert four heathens.

· You must memorize the names of the books of the bible in order.

· You must become a fan of the Cleveland Browns.

The list of arduous possibilities is endless. 

Instead of any of these, John tells them their lives must bear good fruit.  Plain and simple, each person must lead a good, decent life.  He tells the crowd specifically, “If you have two coats, share with a person who has none.  The same goes for food.  If you have food, share with a person who does not.”  He told tax collectors, who were notorious for over-charging and keeping the difference, to take no more than the prescribed amount.  He told soldiers, who were not at all like our professional military but more like hired thugs, to stop taking advantage of people and pushing them around. 

One commenter says John’s message boils down to “share, be fair, and don’t bully.”  It sounds a lot like lessons we were taught from the first day of kindergarten.  Eric Barreto, a New Testament scholar, describes John’s message as “a call to ordinary acts of grace.”  They are things we can do without the supernatural assistance of God’s Holy Spirit.  If we could do it in kindergarten we can do it today.   God is about to do something new, but you are not ready for it.  To get ready you must become what you once were – a decent human being who in every day, ordinary ways thinks about others and cares for others. 

The 19^th Century Dutch politician and theologian Abraham Kuyper is remembered for saying “No single piece of our… world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”  He contends that Jesus is as concerned with presidential decisions as a student’s PowerPoint presentation, as concerned with an investment firm’s policy as with what we purchase at a department store, as concerned with the movement of planets as with how wide we open our hearts and our hands to a person in need.  If you think like this you will understand that the decisions you make matter, that your words matter, that your actions matter, that your life matters.  The quality of fruit you bear matters.  It is as true for the most important and influential person in the room as it is for the least significant person here: John says your life matters and what you do with your life matters.

There is a sentiment held in some Evangelical circles that says Jesus still would have died on the Cross even if I was the only sinner in the world.  What if we turned that around a little bit and gave it a dose of John the Baptist: “God is about to do a new thing, but it won’t happen until I am ready for it, until my life starts to bear good fruit.”  If you believed this then you would believe that everything you do in life matters.  Your every very action either is moving you toward being ready for God’s new and restorative thing or it is not.  Either it is helping the world to be ready for God’s new, restorative thing, or it is not.  What you do matters.

 

I like this picture of a mother and toddler on the beach.  I have sat with it for some time and continue to reflect on its richness.  It is such a common experience.  I think most people can relate to a moment like this.  It occurs to me the child will not remember this particular event, save for the picture.  Still, it matters because the mother is building a bond of love and trust and joy and happiness.  The relationship develops around thousands upon thousands of experiences like this one.  Each is an instant of bearing good fruit.  It reminds me how much every big and every small decision and action matters.

John’s message of hope electrified his listeners.  Through his words, they began to realize God was not going to break into the human world before God broke into the human heart. 

So, continuing our three-word Advent, here is where we are:  On the first Sunday we said, “Take Advent Slowly.”  Last week we said, “Change Your Clothes.”  Today we hear, “Your Life Matters.”

 

Change Your Clothes!

After last Wednesday I am near the place where I dread checking out the news.  There is just so much that is awful and disheartening: killings abroad, killings in at a Planned Parenthood Clinic, killings in San Bernardino.  We are living in a sad, sobering time where each day we discover a new depth to darkness and despair.  In between each tragedy we live with the inevitable dissection of what happened, who is to blame, and what should be done about it.  It is a conversation – well, not so much of a conversation as it is people yelling at each other with no one actually listening – that tears us down and tears us apart and fosters only a spirit of anger, meanness, and hopelessness.

Jonathan Safran Foer, is his novel Everything Is Illuminated, wrote this about one of his characters, but he just as easily could be describing our country as a whole:

She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances.  She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.”

As a people we have responded to the times we live in by immersing ourselves in sadness and in the process we have become a prism through which sadness can be divided into its infinite spectrum.  If this is true, and I think it is, then the biggest challenge we face in the world today is not how to secure our safety.  It is not how to identify those who mean to do us harm.  Our biggest challenge is spiritual. 

There is no question but that we live in a difficult and challenging age.  There is little we can do to change this reality.  But how we respond to our times – how we allow it to affect us – is well within our control.  Chronic sadness, hopelessness, and despair are choices we make in response to what we experience.  No one forces them on us.  Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said, “Sorrow looks back.  Worry looks around.  Faith looks up”.  What do you choose?

This morning’s first reading was taken from the inter-testament Book of Baruch.  It is set during the period of the Exile, a time after God’s people had been conquered militarily, taken from their devastated homeland, and forced to live in Babylon.  It was about as bleak a time as anyone of us could ever imagine.   God’s people lived in captivity for more than two generations until no one alive had ever experienced anything other than life in Babylon.  In that dark time Baruch’s words shined with the brightness of the sun:

Take off the garment

of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,

  and put on forever

the beauty of the glory from God.

Put on the robe of the righteousness

that comes from God;

put on your head the diadem

of the glory of the Everlasting;

  for God will show your splendor

everywhere under heaven.

We like to say, “When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.”  Baruch might change that up a tad to say, “When the going gets bleak, put on festive clothes and celebrate.”  In the face of real life social and political problems he points to a spiritual solution: “We must mourn no longer.  It is time for us to reflect the beauty and the glory of God.  We will choose in whom we live and move and have our being.  And people everywhere will know and see who we are, what we believe, and the power of God working in us.”

Today’s gospel reading demonstrates how Luke sets his story in a historical context: the emperor, the governor, rulers of various regions, and religious leaders in the temple.  All of these people possessing all the world’s power and yet the word of God comes not to them nor does it come through them.  God’s word is spoken by a prophet preaching not in the halls of privilege and power, but in the wilderness.  His message is simple: “Repent of what you have become and be baptized into what God would have you be.”  It is a call to choose spiritual renewal in a time of darkness and despair.

Advent is a season of waiting.  We wait for God’s promise to be fulfilled.  In a little more than two weeks we will celebrate the birth of Jesus and receive its gifts of peace and hope and light.  But these gifts won’t sweep around the globe like some kind of holy tsunami transforming everything in their path.  Peace and hope and light are more like the image Baruch gives us: new garments we put on and wear after we take off the old garments of sorrow and affliction.  They come into the world as God’s free gift.  They are made real in the world through each one of us as we wear them.

Shannon Alder, in her book 300 Questions to Ask Your Parents Before It’s Too Late, makes this obvious, but important observation: “Anger, resentment and jealousy don't change the hearts of others, they only change yours.”  As I watch and read the news I am keenly aware of how what is happening is changing us, changing me.  Looking backward and looking around without looking up has a way of affecting our wardrobe, doesn’t it.  It makes us people of the moment rather than representatives of Eternity.  I for one need to hear John’s call: “Repent of what you have become and be baptized into what God would have you be.”  I need to take off the clothes I am wearing and put on the clothing of peace and hope and light that reflect the beauty and the glory of God.  I began Advent last Sunday with a simple, three-word message: Take Advent Slowly!  Here are this week’s three words: Change Your Clothes!

Take Advent Slowly

Jesus said, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with… the worries of this life, and that the day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.” 

Today is the first Sunday of the year in the church calendar.  Happy new year!  Advent 1.  Advent.  Of all the seasons in the Church year, it most has been bulldozed and buried by contemporary culture, its wisdom and value lost in the marketing rush to get to Christmas.  That other new year celebration, the one in Times Square, has its descending ball and sixty second countdown.  For most, Advent has morphed into a countdown to Christmas: only X number of shopping days left, only three more candles on the wreath to light, only so much time left to trim the tree, send out cards, and bake cookies. 

Is this all there is to Advent?  Is this what it is supposed to be?  Can Advent be something more?   Can it be something else?

I have been reading a book by the writer Rinker Buck about an adventure he set out on a few years ago with his brother.  They decided to retrace by mule-drawn covered wagon the original route of the Oregon Trail – a feat which, to the best of their ability to figure, hadn’t been attempted in over 100 years.  Inspiration (or what some might call “insanity”) for the journey came from several sources.  One was the memory of a similar, shorter trip with their father on a family “vacation” in the 1950’s when they travelled and camped by covered wagon through parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  Their dad hung a sign on the back of the wagon for passing motorists to read: “We apologize for holding up your drive.”  And then in huge print it said, “See America Slowly.”

Rinker Buck’s book, titled The Oregon Trail, is all about what happens when you see America slowly.  As I flew to California last week I was keenly aware I was retracing sections of the Trail myself, albeit at 450 miles per hour from an altitude of 40,000 feet.  My United flight and Buck’s covered wagon both got from point A to point B, but as you can imagine, they were completely different experiences.  I was transported from one coast to another in a couple of hours.  Rinker and his brother were transformed by their journey, which lasted the better part of a summer. 

I am confident you recognize what it is like to go through Advent (and life, for that matter) at 450 MPH from 40,000 feet.  What might it look like to “Take Advent Slowly”?  What might it look like to live slowly and intentionally with Advent’s themes of longing, peace, hope, and love? 

If I asked you what you longed for, could you give me an answer?  If not, do you think your life would be richer if you made some time to sit with yourself until you understood the deepest longings of your heart?  That, I think, would be Advent time well spent.  What if I asked where you find peace in your life?  Can you identify a place, an experience, or a time when peace envelops you on a consistent basis?  If you can’t point to anything, wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could?  What about hope?  What would you say if I asked how hope sustains and encourages you in your life?  Could you give me an answer?  And what if I asked how you experience deep, unconditional, healing love?  Our faith tells us this is how God is in relationship with us.  When, where, and how do you experience it in your life?

If you struggle to answer any or all of these, don’t feel bad.  You are not a failing as a Christian.  My guess is you simply have not taken time to live with yourself in a way that fosters spiritual and personal awareness.  You have been living a 450/40,000 life.  You are not alone, in fact you are part of the majority.  Advent comes not to remind us to get ready for Christmas, but to speak to the value of waiting; of the necessity we have for space to be still, to live with God and ourselves in a slow, quiet way.

Those of you in the Women’s Study Group will recognize how what I am saying connects with the book you are studying by Sue Monk Kidd.  In it she writes of being on a retreat and trying to sit for a period of meditation, only she can’t.  She has lost the capacity to be still and even has come to believe doing nothing is a waste of time.  Then she sees a monk sitting perfectly still under a tree.  He remains motionless for a long, long time.  When his mediation is complete she engages him in conversation, confessing she has trouble getting used to the idea of doing nothing.  Listen to what he says in response:

“When you’re waiting, you’re not doing nothing. You are doing the most important something there is.  You’re allowing your soul to grow up.  If you can’t be still and wait, you can’t become what God created you to be.”

Kidd goes on to make this observation,

“When it comes to religion today, we tend to be long on butterflies and short on cocoons.”

So we have two different, but related images for Advent: the covered wagon and the cocoon.  The covered wagon eventually gets you where you need to go while changing you by the experience.  The cocoon is a slow and necessary process leading to transformation and new life.

God’s promise to us is always new life.  Throughout the Church year we retrace how God’s promise is fulfilled in the person of Jesus.  As it tells the Jesus story, the Church calendar has us waiting four weeks for the promise to be incarnated in a stable in Bethlehem.  In our lives, the waiting can and does take much longer.  In fact, waiting is an indispensible spiritual skill we must draw on regularly if we hope to stay in touch with God and with ourselves. 

Kidd points out that the Greek word for soul is psyche, which often is symbolized as a butterfly.  She writes,

“The fullness of one’s soul evolves slowly.  We are asked to go within to gestate the newness God is trying to form; we’re asked to collaborate with grace.”

Hers is an Advent insight; one challenged by what she calls our “quickaholic” spirituality and lifestyle.  “Be on guard,” Jesus told his followers in today’s gospel reading, “so that your hearts are not weighed down with… the worries of this life, and that the day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.”  I hear him encouraging us to take Advent slowly!