And Hear the Angels Sing!

"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though youa are small
among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one
who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times." (Micah 5:2)

The day is almost upon us.  We've got presents wrapped and under the tree and your kitchen probably smells like the cookies that just came out of the oven (or perhaps a tastefully-chosen cinnamon and eggnog candle that mimics the same effect.)  Here at St. Paul's, we're approaching the end of the week of frenzy that has included a mad scramble to make sure we have all the information for the 9,846 different bulletins that are needed over the next few weeks. (Well, maybe that's a gross exageration, but you get the idea!)  Plans are in place.  I think we're ready...

Really?  We do this every year.  We walk through Christmas sort of like we're preparing for a very familiar play.  The sets are in place; the costumes are ironed; the lines are memorized.  In those days a decree went out... Mary and Joseph get to Bethlehem at the appropriate time and the innkeeper, following the lines, tells them that there's no room.  The baby shows up on cue and we light our candles and sing Silent Night and then hang around with the shepherds while we wait a week for The Wisemen to make their appearance.  And then we go back to our lives.  Really?  So, how's that mystery thing working for you?

God doesn't usually show up on cue or in the way we've planned for God to show up.  Perhaps God shows up when we've gone back to our lives.  God tends to show up not where the beckoning is loudest but where the need is greatest.  God comes when our questions are so overwhelming that we begin to doubt and gives the Divine a face and a name.  God comes when the world is not prepared, when the world, mired in oppression and poverty and greed, has not yet gotten around to cleaning itself up and making itself presentable, when the world has made no room and so God makes a home in a place that we assumed was downright godforsaken and bathes it in light.  God comes into our darkness and illumines our way.  God comes in mystery not to confuse us or make it harder to believe but to give us a taste of the transcendent mystery and amazing miracle that is part of us all.  God will come when and where and in the way that God will come.  And more than likely it will be outside of the box we've built for God.  When you realize that you do not know, it is there that you will finally see Emmanuel, the God who has been with us the whole time.  Rainer Maria Rilke said to "have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.  The point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps, then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

Mary and Joseph are close to Bethlehem.  The roads are getting busier and the dust is making it harder to see.  It's like traveling in darkness.  They are tired.  It would be nice to have a soft bed.  And they do not know what is up ahead.  They do not know what the future holds.  Let it be according to your Word!

And ye, beneath life's crushing load, Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing:
O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.

(Edmund H. Sears, 1849)

         On this day before Christmas Eve, give yourself the gift of mystery.  Let go of your preconceptions (and even your regrets!) about what Christmas holds and what you've planned Christmas to be and hear the angels sing!

Putting On Shoes



God became human.  Well, sure, God can do that if God chooses, but why?  Why would the Divine CHOOSE to become human, CHOOSE to live a life that includes suffering and fear, CHOOSE to live in this imperfect world?  It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  I suppose it's part of that mystery thing.  And the truth is, we struggle with it.  We try to justify it.  You've heard it all before:  "God was the perfect human," "God was only posing as a human," or "It was part of God's plan."  Really?  God PLANNED to be born into poverty, PLANNED to be born into an oppressive society, PLANNED to struggle, PLANNED to be disliked, and PLANNED to die?  I don't really know if that was all part of God's plan or not.  Is it so hard for us to accept that God just CHOSE to be one of us?  After all, part of being human is being subjected to a certain randomness of order, to a life that, as hard as it is for us to imagine, is beyond our control, and to not only the free will of ourself, but also the free will, the choice to do right or do wrong, that others around us have. Being human means that not all of life is a predictable pattern, not all of life is planned.  But, nevertheless, God became human.  After eons and eons of trying to get our attention, God put on shoes and walked with us.

"Incarnate" literally means "taking on flesh."  It means becoming tangible, real, touchable, accessible.  It means becoming human.  It means putting on shoes. In the book Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr calls it God's "most dangerous disguise."  After all, taking on flesh, becoming tangible, becoming real, touchable, accessible also makes one vulnerable and that is incredibly dangerous.  God put on shoes to show us how to be vulnerable, to show us how to give up a piece of ourself and open ourself to the Divine.

The Shoe Heap, Auschwitz, Poland

More than a decade ago, I had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz, Poland.  I expected to be appalled; I expected to be moved; I expected to be saddened at what I would fine.  I did not expect to become so personally or spiritually involved.  As you walk through the concentration camp, you encounter those things that belonged to the prisoners and victims that were unearthed when the camp was captured--suitcases, eye glasses, books, clothes, artifical limbs, and shoes--lots and lots and lots and lots of shoes--mountains of humanity, all piled up in randomness and namelessness and despair.  This is humanity at its worst.  This is humanity making unthinkable decisions about one another based on the need to be in control, based on the need to be proved right or worthy or acceptable at the expense of others' lives, based on the assumption that one human is better or more deserving than another.

And yet, God CHOSE to be human.  God CHOSE to put on shoes, temporarily separating the Godself from the Holy Ground that is always a part of us, and entering our vulnerability.  God willingly CHOSE to become vulnerable and subject to humanity at its worst.  But God did this because beneath us all is Holy Ground.  God came to this earth and put on shoes and walked this earth that we might learn to take our shoes off and feel the Holy Ground beneath our feet.  God CHOSE to be human not so we would learn to be Divine (after all, that is God's department) but so that we would learn what it means to take off our shoes and feel the earth, feel the sand, feel the rock, feel the Divine Creation that is always with us and know that part of being human is knowing the Divine.  Part of being human is being able to feel the earth move under your feet, to be vulnerable, to be tangible, to be real, to take on flesh, to be incarnate.  Part of being human is making God come alive.
  
In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of being human, being vulnerable, and knowing the God who is Divine. Take off your shoes and feel the earth move under your feet.  God is coming!  The earth is beginning to move!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli



    

Open Season

"...who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary..."

We say those words every Sunday.  We stand and we look at the cross and we say with all our heart that we believe these words to be true.  Now, the "conceived" part we get--conceived, thought up, breathed into--Jesus was God's way after eons of breathing Creation into being of finally breathing the very Godself into the world.  The Divine has come to walk with us.  But this Virgin Mary thing?  What is that?  Jesus, born, born as a human, born as a baby.  As unromantic and "un-Nativity-like" as it may be, Jesus was fussy and colicy.  The Son of God, in all likelihood, messed up his first-century diaper.  (I've never been accused of being overly-reverent!)  Mary and Joseph were probably sleep-deprived.  And as time went on, Jesus, like all of us, had to learn to walk and talk and be.   He had to grow into who he was. But when's the last time you held a newborn baby?  When's the last time you held a baby that was only hours old? It's just like holding the entire hope of the world in your arms.  There are no preconceptions; there are no agendas; there is no one to impress or keep from disappointing.  There is only a pure and undefiled openness to what comes next, to what God holds.  There is only hope.  You can smell it.  Maybe it's the smell of birth.  But maybe it's the smell of the Divine.

So does it really matter?  We get so wrapped up in whether or not Mary's virginity was literally intact when Jesus was born.  Again, does it really matter?  Does it really matter when you are holding the hope of the world?  Does it really matter when you are holding the world's salvation in your arms?  Think about it.  Jesus was born, Son of God and Son of Humanity.  Jesus was born to Mary, the mother of the Salvation of the World.  Perhaps the translators of the writing by the writer known as Matthew had it right and Mary was a virgin in every sense of the word--pure, undefiled, and open to receive.  But, more importantly,  Mary was a virgin in the spiritual sense of the word--pure, undefiled, and open to receive what comes next, open to receive whatever God held for her life.  Mary opened her heart and her life that she might birth God into this world.

In this season of Advent, we are called to do the same.  14th century theologian, Meister Eckhart said that "we are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born."  We are all called to be virgin--pure, undefiled, and open to receive.  We are all called to birth God into this world.  How open are you to what comes next?  How open are you to what God holds for your life?  This is the open season.  This is the season when we shed all the preconceptions of what we think God is.  This is the season when we let go of our need to explain God's coming into the world and be open to what comes next.  So does it really matter?  You bet it does.  It is the Hope of the World that depends on it.
 
In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of being open to whatever it is God holds for you and birthing God into your life.  Be virgin.  Be a womb for the hope of the world.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli



      

Following Mystery

16th century English poet and priest, John Donne said that "to love God is to follow the mystery, to be led by its showing and withdrawing."  So, what does that mean...to follow the mystery?  We live in a world where truth is defined as a collection of knowledge, as the accumulation of things known, of things proven.  We do not do well with mystery.  We attempt to conquer it, rather than follow it.  We pray that God will somehow swoop in and finally clear all of this chaos up for us once and for all.  We pray that God will give us understanding and easy roads.  We pray for enlightenment.  We pursue certainty.  We try to figure it all out.  And then Advent comes...

Behold!  Hear this!  Keep awake!  Be not afraid!  You see, things are about to change.  The world as you know it is about to be shaken to its core or, at least, to its senses.  All of those things that you have placed around you in at attempt to control your life will mean nothing.  All of those expectations that you have wrapped around yourself in an effort to prepare for the future are probably keeping your hands from doing what they are meant to do.  And as hard as it is for this "Type A" personality to admit, it is not our job to conquer the chaos of the world by organizing it into something that makes sense to us; rather, we are called to follow the Divine Mystery as it illuminates everything around us.  We are called to open our eyes to see what God is showing us.

Don't get me wrong.  I love preparing for Christmas.  I love buying and wrapping gifts.  I love Christmas trees and lights.  I love baking and giving what I've baked away.  And all of those things are on my "to do" list.  But Advent is about mystery.  It is about being open to the revealing of the One whom we cannot define or control.  It is about being open to the possibility that God will enter this seemingly God-forsaken world not with loud, thrashing pronouncements so that we are certain that's who it is, but more like a whisper in the quiet of the night in a small town and an unkempt grotto in the midst of the chaotic reality of this world.  Advent is about letting go of certainty and following the mystery.

In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of not needing to be certain, of not needing to have everything planned.  Give yourself the gift of being open to the mystery that enters your life.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Becoming Mystery

The way that God comes into our being is not something for which we can plan or project. Think about it--what if rather than always falling on December 25th, Christmas Day came on different days each year and we weren't told until after the day that it had happened? How would you prepare for it then? Because, really, that's the way the first Christmas happened. What if, in the midst of your preparing and your becoming, the time was once again fulfilled, whether or not you were ready? The way that God comes is a mystery, a time fulfilled rather than a time scheduled.

And this day before the eve of Christ's coming finds us on a threshold between darkness and light, between human and divine, between reality and mystery. As we approach Bethlehem, tired from our journey, there are great hoards around us preparing to be counted. It is dusty and crowded and unwelcoming and we are tired of fighting the journey. But there, there in the north, are the quiet stirrings of a door that is beginning to open, a door through which heaven will pour and through which our humanity will somehow mysteriously taste and experience the Divine. How is this happening? "Because," as St. John Chrysostom said, "God is now on earth, and [humanity] in heaven; on every side all things commingle. [God] has come on earth, while being fully in heaven; and while complete in heaven, he is without diminution on earth...Though being the unchanging Word, he became flesh that he might dwell amongst us." [i]

The time is approaching when it will be fulfilled. And the only way for us to enter it is to become mystery and count ourselves among those who reside on that threshold between our lives as they are and the mystery that God holds for us.

Go humbly, humble are the skies,

And low and large and fierce the Star;

So very near the Manger lies

That we may travel far.
(G.K. Chesterton)

So go forth and become mystery!

Grace and Peace,
Shelli


[i] St. John Chrysostom, from "The Mystery", in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas (Plough Publishing)

ADVENT 4B: God-Bearer

Ramblings on this week's Lectionary readings...

During Advent, the Lectionary invites us to read some familiar texts, texts that many of us could almost recite from memory. But if we think that it is just a repetition of the same things as last year, we are very mistaken. We are different; the world is different. And God calls us to walk a little bit farther in the journey, even if it's only a tiny step closer than last year. God calls us to open our lives to receive. God calls us to open our lives to become God-bearers.

2 Samuel 7: 1-16
In the early nomadic times of the Hebrew people, the tent and the tabernacle was that place where, according to the Faith, the Lord resided. It was the appointed place of the Lord. This was the way that God reminded the people that they were not alone. Even though the Lord's people, as they lived through exile and their nomadic beginnings, moved about, they knew that God was with them--residing in a place of honor, a place specifically appointed for the Presence of the Lord, a special place that bore God. This was the place that held the mystery that was God. And now the Lord is speaking of a new time to come. Finally, the people will be settled, planted by the Lord in a new place and, still, the Lord will reside with them, making a house, a place of permanence, a place of glory, a new place of God-bearing.

Romans 16: 25-27
So many Christmases ago, God burst forth into humanity just as God promised. The mystery of God so long shrouded in tabernacles and temples was finally made known in a way that the only response one can make, the only way one can understand is through faith. God is still mystery but where before the mystery was cloaked in secrecy, now the mystery is clothed in faith.

Luke 1: 26-38
"Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." The announcement has been made and heard. The Lord is coming. The Lord who has always been with the people, whether borne in a traveling tabernacle or a house of glory, is now making Godself known in a new way. A humble and uncomplicated young girl will conceive. Her womb will become the tabernacle of God. Alfred Delp said "that God became a mother's son; that there could be a woman walking the earth whose womb was consecrated to be the holy temple and tabernacle of God--that is actually earth's perfection and the fulfillment of its expectations."(i)

God came not to reside in a tabernacle or a temple but, finally, in humanity itself. We are all called to become that womb, that bearer of God. We are all called to be God's sanctuary here on earth. There is still wonder and awe and mystery when it comes to God's Presence. But the mystery is now ours to bear and through which to journey.

So go forth and receive the One that you will bear!

Grace and Peace,
Shelli

(i) Alfred Delp, "The Shaking Reality of Advent", in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas, (Plough Publishing)