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"Like One of Us"   Christmas Eve, December 24, 2015

12/31/2015

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The Radio broadcaster Paul Harvey loved to tell a story about a family on Christmas Eve. This family had a tradition where the Mother and children would go to the Christmas Eve service, and the Father would stay home and read the newspaper (I guess nowadays he’d be checking his ipad or smart phone for the latest statuses). When the family returns home from church, they would all have dinner, and then they would gather to open their presents.

The Father was not a bad man.  It’s just he couldn’t believe in the childhood stories anymore of God coming as a baby in a manger. As the family left for church, he fired up the newpaper/ipad and began to read.

Suddenly, he heard tapping on the window. It was a bird flying against the glass of his window trying to get out of the snow into the warmth of his home. The man had compassion on the bird, and he went outside, hoping to bring it in, or at least lead it to the right direction, away from the window.

As he approached the bird, the bird just flew against the window even harder. Pretty soon, the bird flew into the bushes below the window, half frozen, yet too afraid to be caught by this huge man. The more the man tried to reach for the bird, the more the bird flew frantically into the snow and thorns of the bushes.

After a few minutes in the cold and seeing the bird continue to injure itself, the man yelled out in frustration, "Stupid bird, can’t you understand that I’m trying to help?" The man paused and thought, "If only you understood you wouldn’t fly away … if only … if only I could become a bird, and get you to understand."

Just then, the church bells rang, as they always have on the hour. But when the man heard the bells this time, something stirred in his heart.  He looked at the poor trapped bird and saw himself, in its place.  He began to cry, saying, "Oh, God, I didn’t understand. Oh, God, I didn’t understand."

God’s Son came in human form that we might understand from where we have come, for what reason we were separated and how we could be restored to God.

Let us stop for a moment, and ponder, on this night of miracles, what God has wrought for us.  Our Gracious God could have willed our salvation any which way.  The Ruler of the Universe has all resources at his command.   Indeed, he could have been born in a palace or a mansion with every creature comfort every invented. He could have been the original Superhero.  He could’ve sent hosts of angelic beings to save use. But Jesus chose Mary, Joseph, a stable, Bethlehem, to be a baby. A helpless that would help us make everything right.  A baby we can approach, hold, love, who in turn loves and holds us throughout our life. So we can understand.

Most kings are born in a palace; our king was born far from home, in a stable, because there was no room at the inn. So we can understand.  Most kings and a retinue at their beck and call, our king had his immediate parents, animals, humble shepherds, and foreign wise men who came, left gifts, worshipped, and left as mysteriously as they appeared.  Most kings surround themselves with servants; our king chose to be a servant.  So we can understand.

One day this king would ride in peace on a donkey, not a war horse like human kings. One day instead of a crown of gold a crown of thrones would be shoved on his head.    Instead of using great armies and weapons, his only weapon was love.  So we can understand.  That baby, sleeping in the stable, with the animals, would choose smelly fishermen, the poor and sinners, people like you and me, over the royalty, the clueless rich, the proud, the high and mighty, to call to follow him. So we can understand.
God loves us so much, so very much, he became one of us, just like us.  

God did this to help us, like that poor little bird, to escape alive the snow, to stop flying into obstacles, from being ensnared in the thorns, and the deadly bushes.   Jesus does this for us so we can understand that now we are safe.  We are safe to love.  We are safe to fly. We are safe to serve, like Jesus did.  We are safe to help others out of the cold who are hurting and confused ---- because we have a God who found a way to love us to safety and wholeness.   All this by becoming a baby in Bethlehem.    
​
        Tonight is the night of miracles.  Tonight let us understand and rejoice. God loves us so much that God one with us in Jesus. As an ordinary first century, working class, Jewish baby; sleeping tonight far from home, in an occupied country, in a manger in Bethlehem.  And us poor trapped birds are free, for now we understand, it is the miracle of divine love, the manager and the cross, that has set our half frozen heats free and gives us true life—from the thorns, the snow, the deadly obstacles around us. So sleep dear baby, sleep, as we come to worship and adore you, our God, Emmanuel, God–with-us.  Because now, now we understand.  We understand.  A blessed Christmas, everyone.
Amen.


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"Blessed"   December 20, 2015

12/31/2015

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Luke 1:26-38; Luke 1:47-55

 
A 12 year old is found pregnant while not living with her betrothed.  She could be stoned to death, shamed, disgracing her family.  And this is blessed?

A young man finds his life in turmoil. His intended is pregnant, but how? Who is it? He trusted her.  She was a good, obedient girl.   Yet in a dream an angel tells him to trust, this is of God.   Take her as his wife.  He wakes up.  What does he do?  The rational says quickly dismiss her, or does he believe the whispers of a dream and embrace a life of faith?  This is blessed?

Together, the young man and his pregnant wife are forced to travel sixty miles to Bethlehem to register in a census, by Roman decree.  They travel alone, almost as if they were shunned by the other travelers. Indeed, when they reach Bethlehem, there is no room in the local inns, no distant relatives that can put them up. There is only a stable with the animals for an obviously pregnant woman and her husband.  What happened to the code of hospitality?  This we call a blessing? 

So the blessed event happens not in a secure home, surrounded by loving extended family members and a celebrating village.  It occurred far from home, in a strange village, surrounded by only animals, the immediate parents, and strange, smelly shepherds who visit unannounced later in the night.  This is what we call blessed?

I think we can easily conclude one point from all of this:  God has a very different understanding about what constitutes a blessing than from what human beings thing think.

We often refer to the old gospel hymn, “count your blessings,” count them, one by one.  And so we name all the favors, gifts, and intangibles that bring us happiness.  Our family members. Friends. Co-workers. We think of our homes, our warm bed, food in the fridge, clothes in the closet.  Our careers, our talents, whether they be for singing, playing the organ or piano, cooking, accounting, or making friends, and visiting a shut in.  Blessings, one and all.  However our Advent/Christmas story now asks us to take a great Santa leap in understanding blessing, so that we can see how Mary in her circumstances was blessed, how Joseph in his confusion was blessed, how together in their challenges they were blessed, and we are blessed as a result.

        Blessings occur hundreds of times in the Bible.  God covenants with us and blesses to confer favor – peace, and the Holy Spirit.   Material prosperity, while a sign of blessing especially in the Hebrew Scriptures, does not overshadow the primary sense of blessing that derives from walking with God, following his commandments and doing his will.

        Being blessed and doing God’s will doesn’t mean that we escape danger, inconvenience and other infelicities of life as we saw with Mary and Joseph. Ask any civil rights worker, any one working for social justice, anybody trying to do the right thing when what’s “right” isn’t fashionable,  and we see how God’s blessings brings added challenges as well as joys to our life.  The question is, do we feel God-with-us as closely as Mary spiritually and physically did, that the challenges are subsumed in the joy of the relationship. That’s real blessing.

        We can look at it another way.  Why would the Divine Blesser, The Infinite One, the Omnipotent, bother with the messy, dangerous process of incarnation as a human being?  Why bother with engaging the free will of young human beings, putting them at risk in this plan?   Why the waiting, growing, changing?   What would it mean, other than God wanting to have the most intimate, loving connection with us, his creation, in a way our hearts could fully understand and embrace?  What greater blessing can there be than for us to see God’s love with our very eyes in Jesus, and be blessed by the assurance that we are loved by God.  

        Methodius, a Bishop who was martyred in 311 AD, offers this stunning poetic tribute to the implications of Mary’s pregnancy:
Thou art the circumscription of him who cannot be circumscribed;
The root of the most beautiful flower;
The mother of the Creator; the nurse of the Nourisher;
The circumference of Him who embraces all things;
The upholder of him who upholds all things by his word;
Thou hast lent God, who stands in the need of nothing,
That flesh which he had not
Thou has clad the Mighty One with that most beauteous panoply of the body by which it became possible for him to be seen by my eyes
Hail! Hail! Mother and servant of God.
Hail! Hail! Thou to whom the great Creditor of all is a debtor.

What a beautiful poem.  Do we realize that we all share in this original blessing?  Through our baptism we are taught that Christ dwells in us?  Paul teaches us this repeatedly: 

        “ Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you?”  2 Corinthians 13:5 ….“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love” Ephesians 3:17 “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”--Galatians 2:20

We now are like Mary, lending God flesh to carry out the acts of Blessing in the world.

As we prepare to enter the Christmas story, we need to enflesh Jesus more clearly in the world than as we care for our neighbor in need right now, particularly in the flight of refugees, especially in the plight of the rising anti-Islamophobia, we are called to respond with Christ’s incarnate love.

This need is especially pressing given the growing political climate of our country. We have major political candidates who have recently called for a ban of allowing Muslims to enter the United States or stating that Muslims should never be allowed to run for president.  We have candidates on record for stating

Christians shouldn’t rent space in their churches to Muslims. This same candidate called Islam “a religion that promotes the most murderous mayhem on the planet.”  Not al-Qaeda, or ISIL, or jihadists or terrorists, but Islam itself (by the way, ignoring Christianity’s bloody and violent history).   Another local California Councilwoman said at a demonstration objecting to the speakers at a Muslim community charity fundraiser:  “What’s going on over there right now, make no bones about it, that is pure
unadulterated evil ...  I know quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in Paradise.”  “  Over there” was the community center which Muslim families (many with small children) were entering. "

        The result since the most inflammatory speech on December 7 has been 19 attacks nationwide against individual Muslims or mosques.   This includes a food store owner in New York City being attacked by a man who said he would "kill Muslims," and a man breaking in to and vandalizing the Islamic Center of Palm Beach in Florida.  This past Monday in Michigan a robber put a gun at a store clerk’s face and called him a “terrorist, “ and “I shot people like you in the Middle East.”  52% of Americans are convinced that Islam is a violent religion.  Yet 75 percent of Americans believe that self-identified Christians “who commit acts of violence in the name of Christianity are not really Christian.”  Clearly, Jesus’ words, “Blessed are the Peacemakers” have never been so more prophet, needed to be studied and followed.   
​
        We like Mary and Joseph, travel the road to incarnating blessing and love of Jesus alone – apart from statements from our Presbytery or from our denomination. They will come, in time.  But we must incarnate that love now. We must bless, now.  How shall we do this?  How we will we get to know our Muslim neighbors here in Bay Ridge as our Christmas journey and well into the New Year? That is our challenge, one as confusing and joyful as Mary and Joseph faced. How do we become blessing makers right here?

        We begin by acknowledging that blessings come in disguise. a sudden pregnancy that put a life in danger. An unannounced journey, no accommodations, everything going wrong, but everything becoming right for us in the end.  Love transforms it all into blessing.

        So it is with us. With the challenges we face in our lives.  To get to know and stand up for our Muslim neighbors in the challenges they face here in Bay Ridge, here in New York City. So we can be blessing creators, peace makers..incarnators of love around us.   In this we continue the journey of Jesus, of Mary and Joseph, and we shall lend flesh to the longed-for peace, and rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, we can embrace all our neighbors as brothers and sisters, and bring new meaning to the angels call so long ago:” Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor – his- blessing -- rests.”  Amen. 



 
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/12/10/3730520/americans-prri-statistics-christian-muslim/
http://www.cair.com/

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"Filled with Expectations!"  December 13, 2015

12/14/2015

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Luke 3:7-18; Philippians 4:1-13

 
   Union Church is filled with joyful messengers today, from little Union angels from our "Angel Pageant"  to those of the heavenly ranks, to the saints of Philippi, to even fiery John.  Listen again to his passion when he calls out to the spiritual leadership of Jerusalem:   “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”   This was the little baby we met just a week ago, the joy and delight of his elderly parents, filled with the Holy Spirit from birth, destined to prepare the way of the Lord.  

   Yes, the angels are messengers of God’s word just as John is, and people flock to both as we see in the scriptures.  Eight out of `10 Americans believe in angels and Pope Francis goes further to assure us that we each are assigned a guardian angel, and would do well attune ourselves to our traveling companion.  “No one journeys alone and no one should think that they are alone,” The Pope declared.   Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, responded, to the angel, with fear, Mary and Shepherds had to be first advised not to fear before any conversation could take place.   Yet once we overcome our fear and hesitation, if our heart is seeking God, we find ourselves filled with expectation and hope, seeking God’s will and direction for our lives from our angelic friends.  We long to hear a good word, a message, guidance from someone wiser, someone further along the way, be it a prophet, an elder, an angel.

So in this vein, people flocked to hear the message of John in the wilderness.  There’s no two ways about it: John was gruff.   He was not afraid to denounce the corruption in the spiritual leadership.  He didn’t pull any punches.  He was an ascetic  -  yet he was joyful.   He called out sin but more importantly, called out a yearning for wholeness.  “Bear fruits worthy of repentance!” He demanded.   He knew what we could do. Like Paul he insisted we bear good fruit.  Remember what Paul wrote to the Philippians? “Let your gentleness be known by everyone…Beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever, is just, whatever, is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise thing think about these things.”     The crowds hungered to hear John talk about this.
John had a way about him.  We know about the camel hair coat and eating the locusts and wild honey.  We have the pictures of the uncombed hair –wilderness look -- that we associate little we joy – but John – he lived joyfully.  The wilderness was a symphony of joy.   As he went about living into his mission – Joy sustained him.  He exuded Joy.  That’s what drew people to him. 

People felt the brokenness in their lives that John was talking about. They felt the wholeness in his life and they wanted what he had.

        So they were filled with expectation.  They asked: what should we do?

If you have two coats, share one. John said. Same with food, share your food.

Tax collectors asked, what should we do?   Don’t cheat. John answered.

Soldiers asked: what should we do?  Interesting answer here, John didn’t say, leave the army and join the resistance, he said not to exhort money and be satisfied with your wages. 

Unless there is sociopathy or psychopathy, profound mental illness, or evil; people are drawn to integrity, goodness, truthfulness, and joy.  We want to be around near people who can teach us, guide us, and transmit their energy as if by
osmosis. 

Friday, Forrest and I had a date night and went to see the “Mocking Jay Part 2” movie.  Every time the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman made a cameo appearance, Forrest squeezed my hand a little tighter.  After the movie, we talked awhile.  What was it about Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and others, like Robin Williams, John Denver, a Marilyn Monroe, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, creative lights that drew people to them, troubled souls that could exude joy that others hounded from them that they themselves so desperately needed for themselves?   

There was a recent national poll about what values were important to pass on to the next generation:  Honesty topped the charts (43%), followed by kindness (29%), a strong work ethic (11%) were the top three.  There is such a deep desire to communicate and share with one another what is most important in our lives. To find in others what is important in life.  However, we must find it in ourselves through our faith formed by the Spirit of Christ.

As we draw closer to Christmas, Advent reminds us of two things.   To cultivate the gift of joy.  We don’t have to live in the wilderness or be an ascetic to be filled with joy. Joy is the afterglow of being in the presence of God – the experience and awareness of which we are called to cultivate as part of our walk of faith.   Like Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord, always, again I will say, Rejoice.”  

Joy is directly related to the word that means God’s grace – which is freely given to us.  So all we have to do is just as for it. Be open to it.  Let it in.  Joy is the reason John could joyful in the wilderness and a just King or Queen could be joyful in his or her palace.  A billionaire can be joyful as a beggar.   
  
Joy transforms us – Joy is created in the character of God and Joy was born in the person of Jesus Christ.  Advent wants us to have the grace of Joy, to be joyful, to rejoice, to rejoice always, in all situations. To acquire the spiritual maturity and insight to know what this means.   Without Joy, we cannot be ready for Christmas. Without Joy, we have half a life.  We are created for joy.

Second, Advent wants us to be messengers. We may not be angels or prophets, but we can spread the word of God.  If we can develop the well of joy within our hearts, if we live filled with expectation that God has more for us to do, that God can do all things through us, God strengthens us, then we too become people of integrity.  We can live our lives so that our outsides matches our insides.  Our words flows from our hearts.   People will sense the urgency and power behind what we say and do.  People will sense the joy in our Spirit in if we carry burdens.             
   Like John, we recognize there is one greater, who baptizes with   Holy Spirit and Fire.   However our Advent exhortations, whatever they be, a word, a deed, a song, a prayer, as long as they are done with integrity of spirt and with joy, will have the power to stir a soul to longing, perhaps to  awaken a being to question, what shall I do?

We are God’s message, So be God’s love note to someone.  Stir up expectations, questions long unasked, possibilities unexplored. Be that message.

So Rejoice!  You may be that one messenger of integrity, that one messenger of hope, that one messenger of truth, that one messenger of joy that speaks fills someone’s world with expectation this Christmas season.   

Don’t worry.  As Pope Francis said, you have a traveling companion with you, should you get stuck on a word or two.  Jesus, promises us the Holy Spirit whenever we need it.  Most important, It is the joy of your countenance, the peace of your spirit, the gentleness of your heart, the goodness of your character, and the righteousness of your deeds that speaks louder than before you can articulate a word.  

So be joyful.  Rejoice.  Proclaim the gospel – and as St. Francis once said – use words if necessary.  Amen.
 

 
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/02/pope-francis-angels-believe-guardian-help
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-nearly-8-in-10-americans-believe-in-angels/
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"Light for Peace"   December 6, 2015   Advent 2

12/9/2015

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Luke 1:68-79; Luke 3: 1-6
”
 
 The birth of a baby, especially one that has been long anticipated as was John the Baptizer in today’s Gospel lesson, is cause for great celebration.  Which reminds me of a typical baptism joke – capturing the concerns of both parents and clergy alike.
        Before performing a baptism, the priest approached the young father and said solemnly, "Baptism is a serious step. Are you prepared for it?"
        "I think so," the young father replied. "My wife has made appetizers and we have a caterer coming to provide plenty of cookies and cakes for all of our guests."
        "I don't mean that," the priest responded. "I mean, are you prepared spiritually?"
        "Oh, sure," came the reply. "I've got a keg of beer and a case of whiskey."  That’s one baptism party I’d love to be at! (You know I can only tell that joke here at Union Church.)
        Zechariah’s prophesy about John at his circumcision (the equivalent to a degree of a Christian baptism) echoes the prophecy Zechariah first heard nine months earlier when he was serving in the temple in Jerusalem. Quite the honor it was.  There in the Holy of Holies, as he was offering the incense and prayers, the Angel Gabriel appeared and announced to him that he and his wife Elizabeth was going to have a baby boy named John in their old age. A boy who would be a joy and a delight to them.  A boy great before the Lord.  A boy filled with the Holy Spirit, who would turn the hearts of the sons to their fathers, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, and make ready a people prepared for the Lord. 

Zechariah, however, doubted. Because he doubted, he became mute. Mute for nine long months.   He could tell no one what happened in the temple, although he kept making signs.   They realized something happened. He must have seen a vision.  But of what?

        Then Elizabeth got pregnant and she went into seclusion.  She spent time with her kinswoman, Mary, also pregnant with the Savior, the very person that John would be preparing the way for.   Even in the womb, John sensed Jesus’ presence, the scriptures tell us.  Then at John’s birth all the neighbors’ gathered to share in the joy.  At his circumcision on the eighth day, they were planning to call the baby Zechariah, after his father, but Elizabeth spoke up saying, no, his name is John.  Zechariah had to be consulted. So he wrote out, “His name is John” to confirm Elizabeth’s knowledge of the prophecy.  With that his tongue was loosed and he was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke of his son, and the coming messiah. A beautiful prophecy – a prophecy that gestated for nine months along with his baby son, how God remembers, God rescues, God prepares by sending us servants to teach us and guide us, to see the salvation of God: every valley filled, every Mountain made low in the advent of Peace. John would be the light to the way to Peace.

            With all that is happening with Muslim-American relations, I think of peace, as we all do these day, with San Bernandino, the 355th mass shooting of the year still tender on our hearts. Let’s be real, Sandy Hook, Paris, Charleston, Cleveland, Tuslsa, Ferguson, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan-- all the broken places of our world -- it’s all tender on our hearts. The Poem by Arab-American poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, entitled “Jerusalem,” speaks of the entrenched conflict of the eternal city, and the entrenched conflict within ourselves—and all around us-- that eludes the presence of peace.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/241002

I’m not interested in
who suffered the most.
I’m interested in
people getting over it.

Once when my father was a boy
a stone hit him on the head.
Hair would never grow there.
Our fingers found the tender spot
and its riddles: the boy who has fallen
stands up. A bucket of pears
in his mother’s doorway welcomes him home.
The pears are not crying.
Lately his friend who threw the stone
says he was aiming at a bird.
And my father starts growing wings.

Each carries a tender spot:
something our lives forgot to give us.
A man builds a house and says,
“I am native now.”
A woman speaks to a tree in place
of her son. And olives come.
A child’s poem says,
“I don’t like wars,
they end up with monuments.”
He’s painting a bird with wings
wide enough to cover two roofs at once.

Why are we so monumentally slow?
Soldiers stalk a pharmacy:
big guns, little pills.
If you tilt your head just slightly
it’s ridiculous.

There’s a place in this brain
where hate won’t grow.
I touch its riddles: wind and seeds.
Something pokes us as we sleep.
It’s late but everything comes next. 
 
      It’s late.   But John has prepared us for everything that comes next.   John, a light, for the True Light of the world,  John who is the voice crying out in the wilderness,  that every valley of oppression and depression be filled. Every mountain and hill that has caused an obstacle to growth be made low. The crooked-minded be made straight.  The rough ways and tough choices to right living be made smoot; all is preparing the way for what comes next.  Peace has got to come next.

     Not the peace of a soldier guar
ding a pharmacy.  Not the peace of a cemetery or a woman speaking to a tree instead of her son. Not the peace of Wars’ Monuments.  But Peace that comes when we learn to repent from all the ways of war and conflict.  Peace that comes from the leveling of valleys and mountains of unjust experiences. Peace that comes from the forgiveness and the repentance of sin of unrighteousness and ungenerosity.

     Peace is more.  Peace is a Way; that Jesus is the that way.   Peace stands for completeness and wholeness of being that is woven into the fabric of our being.  We are born that way—the way every child is, the way John was.  There is nothing we can do to be made more in the image and likeness of God.  We are complete. In God’s eyes, nothing is missing.   Yet we get lost in the valleys and mountains of our contrived differences.  We lose who we and whose we are in following false gods of divisions; “you belong in the valley, I get to be king of the mountain.”  

      We feel incomplete and empty and spend our resources and our time searching to fill the hole in ourselves, in our collective psyche, in our national psyche – a God-shaped hole – that only God can fill. Only God-oriented, love-centered, justice & righteousness oriented deeds can fill this hole.  This is the light Jesus brought into the world to lead us to peace.   Jesus shows leads us to the wholeness already within ourselves and to which Jesus restores to us with his very life.


     John over the centuries calls us over and over.  To give light to those who sit in darkness. We don’t have to anymore, you and I.  We are made compete and whole.  In the image of love and kindness.   We can return.  That is what Advent calls to do. Johns says, to those who sit in the shadow of death, “I am a voice crying out.”  Turn around and see.  There is a light, a way to Peace.   It’s late. 

     
      Something pokes us when we sleep. Because there’s a place in our brains where hate won’t grow.  Find it,  And there,  Jesus meets us, Jesus waits to make us whole, once again.  Then, we shlll have peace, as Jesus says, that passes all understanding. Peace for our broken, aching hearts.

Amen.
 

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"Raise Your Heads Up!"   November 29, 2015

12/1/2015

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​1Thess. 3:9-13: Luke 21: 25-36

UCBR “Lift Up Your Heads”  ADVENT 1
 
 When my children were in their middle school years, they devoured the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.   Do you remember Calvin and Hobbes?  Calvin was a precocious six year old named after, who else? our dearly beloved 16th century John Calvin, father Presbyterianism.   Hobbes was a imaginary stuffed tiger, named after Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century political philosopher.   Can you imagine what a real dialogue between these two esteemed men would be like?  Anyway, in an old Calvin and Hobbes comic strip – this conversation takes place.  In the first frame Calvin tells Hobbes:  “live for the moment is my motto!You never know how long you got.”

In the second frame Calvin explains:  “You could step into the road tomorrow and WHAM, you get hit by a cement truck!   Then you’d be sorry you put off your pleasures.  That’s what I say – live for the moment!”

An then Calvin asks Hobbes:  “What’s your motto?”  Hobbes replies:  “My motto is – Look down the road.”

In today’s lesson, Jesus is talking about the cultivating the  practice of  looking down the road.    Being alert – to all that is happening around us.   Raise your heads. Look!   Jesus is here.  

A few weeks ago, if you recall, we examined an apocalyptic passage from Mark’s gospel.  Today we hear Luke’s version of Jesus’ apocalyptic discourse.  It seems strange that here we are, in the first week of Advent, at the beginning of our church year – and we’re discussing the end of the days.  Apocalyptic literature is en vogue these days, we see articles, books, youtube channels devoted unearthing the meaning of Jesus’ words.
Apocalypse means to “reveal” or “uncover.” 

  It describes – often in symbolism or code – the second coming of Jesus, the triumph of Good over evil and the enemies of God, and the end of the world as we know it. Apocalyptic writings contain depictions of natural catastrophes,    war, demons and angels and other  larger-than-life creatures.  It’s a lucrative field that for decades, if not centuries, has spawned best-selling books, movies, the creation of luxury underground bunkers, popular games about the “zombie” apocalypse. 

If you act fast, you can still get this best seller from amazon “Apocalypse How:   How To Turn the End Times into the Best of Times.”

Every day and age has read the signs of the times and thought themselves to be in the end days. Apocalyptic thinking thrives in times of suffering and oppression.   And there’s been a lot of suffering and oppression throughout human history.   Oddly enough – at the root of the Apocalypse is not doom and gloom, but finding hope.  Hope in a God who delivers us when everything else fails.

Remember what Paul wrote to the Church at Thessalonica about their loss of faith in the delay of the Parousia,  the belief that Jesus would return any minute and swept them off their feet.  In their time of persecution and hardship he tells them “we want to restore what is lacking in your faith.”   So the apocalyptic images we hear about today are about finding hope – in a suffering, alienating world.   

To nurture hope – our advent task for the week – Jesus says, raise your head!!   Or as Hobbes puts it, “ Look down the road.”   See the signs of difficulty around you as a call to hope, a call to action and service.    Hope is a confident expectation of something not yet accomplished.   Hope orients us toward the future while grounding us in the present.   It motivates us to positive action.  Aristotle described hope as a “waking dream – a dream with all the power to help us imagine the not yet, and ask, why not?”   Hope see the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible.  Hope doesn’t give up.

Long before the enlightenment, long before we in the West knew of Eastern teaching about mindfulness and awaking, we had Jesus’ words:  “Stand and raise your head, be on guard, stay awake and stay alert.” Awake. Alert. Head held high. Our hearts can catch a glimpse of God’s view, the bigger picture of the kingdom of God.  Where hope lives and love and justice reign. 
Hope is not only a collective virtue we develop together.  Each of us is called to practice hope.  I want to tell you how I found hope.   How I found my way out of my own personal apocalypse – through the process of my father’s dying from Alzheimer’s Disease.

You see dad and I were close when I was a child. But as I grew up, alcoholism, unemployment and homelessness got in the way of our relationship.   My inability to forgive got in the way of our relationship.  Family dynamics got in the way of my ability to let go of the past and have hope for a new future.

Sadly, this is a tale that repeats itself in millions of families in a variety of  formats.  In my case, thirty years when swiftly by.  Somehow, I always thought we’d talk things over, but we never did.  Alzheimer’s made sure of that.  We were separated by 500 miles, 30 years of unspoken conversation, all that unfinished business.   So at the beginning of Advent about  25 years ago, hope found a way.

It began with a dream. What else?  It was a lucid dream – of dad calling out my name, over and over.  It was so powerful that I call my stepmother the next morning in Ohio.  She reported back that the nurses in the assisted living facility had commented that my dad had restless night and had in fact, called out something that sounded like my name.  

 After that came more dreams. Apocalyptic feeling dreams, scary dreams, all involving my dad. Dreams I wanted to forget.   Filled with monsters and animals and dad suffering.  I prayed to understand, God said, keep praying, your father is working through unfinished business on a spiritual level.  Meanwhile, he was lying unconscious, uncommunicative, on a hospice bed.  

 My final challenge came at the end.  My brother called. Dad had a day or so to go.  I needed to come home now.  That’s when my monsters emerged.   Why should I make such an effort, a financial sacrifice,  when he had forsaken us as children?   Raise your head, the Holy Spirit, said.   Look up.   Do not worry.  You will regret it forever if you do not go.Raise your head, hope, and I will make all work out right.”

   And off I went.  As the plane lifted above the clouds, I began to feel as if the burden of those decades finally fall off.   They continued to lift as I spent the remaining eight hours of his life with him.  Somehow without talking, it was all complete.  All I had to do was raise my head, be alert to the signs, look beyond myself  and hope.  God was faithful.  He forged a reconciliation between a unconscious dying man and his stubborn daughter.   That’s hope.

What do we make of this?  God’s redemptive hand can reach beyond our understanding and experience of tie and space?   Often we are trapped in a personal apocalypse.  A doom and gloom that never seems to lift.  We lose a vison for the future.   Relationships seem beyond repair.   All seems finished.   Like in Calvin’s fantasy we get hit by cement trucks – WHAM! there goes our health.   There goes our faith WHAM!!  there goes our dreams.  WHAM!!  There goes our precious relationships.  WHAM!!  there goes our hope.
 
So here we are with Luke, in the apocalypse unfolding everyday. Where suffering goes on too long and change takes forever.   What is important to remember as we begin Advent – is hope is center.   It’s what we really long for.  And God is in charge.   God Does actively intervene in our world, sending dreams,  keeping us alert, giving us advice.   God wants us to actively love this world into a new heavens and a new earth. To Raise our heads.  Jesus says, I’ll show you how it’s done.

So Advent is our time to practice hope.  Remember Jesus asks us in Luke to be careful that we are not weighed down with dissipation – overspending – drunkenness?   Drunk by alcohol or dunk on pride or self-righteousness or anger? Or weighted down by the worries of life—health, employment, the economy- what kind of world we are leaving the next generation?  Don’t be weighed down by the negative – be lifted up, Jesus says by hope. 

Be lifted up by this adapted message of poet May Angelou:*

In the sweet shadow of Thanksgiving I am giving forgiveness to everyone I thought had ill-treated me.  I want to enter the Christmas month with a clean slate.  I want to think that everyone I know can enter the last month of this year free of any ill will between us.  Let us all go into December 2015 free giving and expecting the good thing.
*adapted from her 2012 message

So Let us raise our heads!  Let every small act and grand act of kindness and love enkindle the flame of hope – to light our way into the night, a way out of our darkness and find our way to the Christ Child, who waits for us, bearing Hope born new. Amen.   

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    Moirajo is a minister, social worker, wife, mother, writer and animal lover. That's just for starters. Join the story, there's so much we can share together! 

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