Advent IV B Mary Points to Christ

        

In nearly every Episcopal church where I have served or been a member there has been a Mary altar in part of the nave.  At my sponsoring parish in Lexington, the priest had brought back from Central America a wonderful statue of Mary holding the Christ child.  Here at Holy Trinity, our Mary altar includes a three-part picture, called a triptych, and we also have an icon showing the same scene—Mary holding the baby. In each case Mary is dressed in traditional blue and flanked by angels on either side.

At evening prayer, the traditional canticle is the song of Mary, which we said and sang last week.  The monks of Gethsemane in Kentucky every day sing the Canticle of Mary, and say a rosary after their final prayers of the evening.  Anglo-Catholic groups of Anglicans practice Marian devotions than more protestant groups.  But most of us Episcopalians see Mary as worthy of attention, whether we light a candle here at our Mary altar or think about her as the bearer of God.

Roman Catholics and Anglicans all agree that Mary is not divine, but is a servant of the divine, bringing God into the world.  We do not worship her but put her in a category with the saints, a little above those we remember, as a figure who is central to our faith.  She is at once filled with grace and favored by God, but also the specific person God chose to announce the coming of God’s son into the world.

Mary heard the words of the angel Gabriel with mixed emotions, which makes her a figure we can relate to—she is first perplexed, an understandable reaction, wondering what is going on with a greeting from an angel of God.  She must also have been afraid for the angel tells her not to fear. When the angel tells her she is going to bear a son, she is very surprised for she is a virgin, and asks how can this be.  Nothing is impossible with God, the angel answers her.  At that message, Mary seems to realize that God is truly with her, and she acquiesces to this amazing and frightful news by replying “here am I” to all that has transpired.

So, a peasant girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, the age of betrothal at this time, becomes the bearer of God.  How are we to react? What does this mean to you?

In a book he wrote about praying with the icons of Mary, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury said: "It is not only that we cannot understand Mary without seeing her as pointing to Christ; we cannot understand Christ without seeing his attention to Mary". 

The peasant girl who will be the mother of Christ points to a baby, born among the animals of the manger, visited by peasant sheepherders.  She points to Christ who will serve the humble, the captives, the least of those among us, showing that in their lowliness God is with them. Christ tasted their wine, ate their bread, and knew their homelessness.

Mary makes real the entrance of God into the world at a very particular point in time, to a very specific young woman, bethrothed to a specific man of Nazareth.  This is not a message about God forcing God’s will upon a human being, but God announcing God’s favor to a lowly girl, who in turn feels many things, and finally sees that God is about to do something new in her.  Mary becomes the willing servant of God, offering her very self.  This offering of her body points to the offering that Christ will make of his body. They both, mother and son, serve God specifically by embodying the love of God for all humanity.  So Mary points to servanthood and self-giving in the great dream of God to bring all humans to God’s heart in love.

Mary points to the miracle of this love—that it came as through a lowly girl in first century Palestine, and lived in a humble traveling prophet who worked miracles with the sick, ate with outcasts and sinners, and ultimately was reunited with us through resurrection.  Mary points to these miracles, that with God nothing is impossible.

Fear not, the angel says, for God with you.  Emmanuel, in Hebrew.  Mary points to the opening of her heart by overcoming her fear and perplexedness, overcoming her doubts about the bearing of a son though God’s spirit.  She does not deny her fear and confusion, but keeps listening to the message God has for her, stays with the feelings and then becomes a partner with God in this miracle of love.

What does Mary point to for you? Do you find your own feelings in this message from Gabriel?  Advent has many seeking a miracle and here we find it.  Advent has us waiting with Mary for this son, whose birth we will celebrate in a week.  The message of this last few days before the Christ Mass is that God favored a peasant girl, and she stepped through her swirl of emotions to accept God’s favor, in a willing giving of herself to bring God’s incarnate love into the world.  In these last days of Advent, be ready for this love.

Advent III B Blessing is still happening

I don’t know if filling out gratitude cards these past few weeks has made a difference to you.  If paying attention to what is good in your life makes you even more grateful, gives you a sense of being lifted up, freer from worry about the small stuff.  But the goal has been merely to bring to your mind the good things in your life, to take a minute to ponder those things and be grateful.

I had a sad phone call the other day from someone who is not a parishioner but who calls me sometimes for support.  He tells me of his unemployment running out, of depression, of being paralyzed with the fear of meeting people, and the inability to get out of the house.  There were tears in this phone call and I sensed him giving up. He said he felt that God was mad at him because there were so many bad things happening in his life.

First, I listened to what this person had to say, not judging where he was coming from.  But I asked why he thought God was mad at him?  Bad things happen all the time to all kinds of people. Even Ghandi was arrested, Martin Luther King put in jail.  The Virgin Mary is pregnant without a husband.  All of us undergo difficult times that have nothing to do with how God feels about us.

No one is immune to things going wrong—illness, job issues, economic downturn, losses of all kinds.  We all must face difficulties and challenges, but it is how we respond to these events that make us strong, that give us faith even in the face of them.

The prophet Isaiah speaks to the Israelites who have been returned to their homeland.  There is not continuing sullenness about the years of exile in Babylon, but joy: “God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners,” Isaiah says, bringing a garland instead of ashes. These images are of a God who has a preference for those who have gone through the fire, who have seen hard times and grief. God sends Isaiah to proclaim God’s favor.

God sends John the Baptist to witness to the light, we hear in our gospel.  If people were not walking in darkness there would be no need for light.  If the world was not in need of the love of God, Christ would not have come to us.  So the Virgin Mary, instead of lamenting her condition, proclaims the greatness of a God who brings his spirit within her womb, who casts the mighty from their thrones, fills the hungry with good things, lifts up the lowly.

These images tell of the God who is with us: Immanuel.  They tell not of a God who makes all the bad choices surrounding us go away but who loves us through them, and because of them. 

While we know these writings are old, from the 6^th century BC and from the first two centuries AD, we also know they are still true. God is still being born among us, being planted in spirit in a womb and coming to us.  God is still blessing us and Mary is still giving birth to the messiah who comes to save.

We are not left without God’s love. “Those who sowed in tears will reap with songs of joy”, we still believe. We believe that God is with us, giving us the most important things we need—the love of family and friends, and especially the love of this faith community where you are accepted for exactly who you are. 

The joy of God coming to us is the message of this third Sunday of Advent. Can you experience this joy when you focus on the good things God is doing for you, when you take time to think about what you are and what you have that are gifts from God?

Can you feel the wonder and joy of Mary, as God fills the hungry with good things, show the strength of his arm, to scatter the proud and bring down the mighty from their thrones, God coming to the help of his servant?

For not only do we undergo the hard times, at the same time we are showered with God’s gifts.  It depends where we focus our lives—on the hard things we are undergoing or on the many gifts surrounding us.  Mary chose to remember the gift of God’s spirit coming into the world, John the Baptist witnessed to the light, and the prophet Isaiah told of how God released those in captivity. 

Not all of us can be focused on God’s presence and gifts all the time, but during Advent we are all called to remember the spirit of God being birthed among us. We are called to focus on the light coming to us, being filled with good things, being set free from whatever captures us.  Pray to be attentive to God’s good things in your midst during this Advent.

Advent II B A call from the wilderness

Have you ever had a bad phone connection, where the call keeps getting dropped, or when you can’t get any cell service?  This often happened to me when I served the church in Morehead Kentucky which on the edge of the Appalachian range. I not only could not get cell coverage, I could not get my air card for my computer internet service to work.  I finally found out that the local coffee shop had wifi service and I could take my laptop there to get email.  The coffee shop offered good coffee and a welcoming spot to work, and I was surrounded by many Morehead State students and faculty doing the same thing.

And have you ever tried to communicate with another person, only to find that they don’t get what you’re saying?  Maybe you have a particular point you’re trying to convey, or you need to vent about something important that’s bugging you, but the other person is not hearing you.  There is a type of couples counseling that I have found very useful to help you learn how to really listen, called Imago Therapy.  In that counseling technique, I learned to curb my need to reply when someone was telling me about their feelings.  I learned that they are telling about their experience and that this was what most of us yearn for—to be heard, to be listened to.  The Imago technique teaches you how to listen without being defensive, without breaking into the other person’s speech to contradict them, without feeling the need to respond even.  The word for this is validation—the person speaking feels that their experience means something by being listened to.  It does not mean that you necessarily have the same feelings or that you agree with their viewpoint, but that you have allowed them to speak their own truth about their situation.  To be able to speak about deep feelings to another person in this way is truly freeing.  When I practiced this way of listening and being heard, it opened me up, and created a place of trust in my relationship with the other person.  This kind of listening is not easy, and takes a lot of practice, and I cannot say I do it very well, but I know the power of being heard and the freedom of giving another person a chance to speak their truth.

When you can’t speak your truth, when you can’t be understood or heard by another person who you care about, you may feel frustrated, hurt, angry, and even uncared for.  You are a voice crying in the wilderness.  You may feel on the outside, all alone.

The voice of John the Baptist was crying out for repentence to all who were seeking God.  John’s wild look and habits made him an outsider, signified that God was coming from a new place, a place of wilderness, where those who are not heard may be heard and comforted.

What comfort does God have for us who feel unheard, for those who are on the outside or in the wilderness?  When there are places inside us that are crying out, needing to speak our truth?  Where is God in our dark places?

This time of Advent, this time of preparation allows us the space to look at the darkness both in ourselves and in the world around us.  Even the darkness of the nights of December may have us seeking some light.  Where do you find the light of God, find the God that comforts, from the place of wilderness?

Each of us have our own way of finding God, but first we must decide that God is there for the finding and that it is important to go looking for the light of God in the darkness we may be feeling.

For the message of John the Baptist is that God is there for those who are seeking. That repentence is the key to finding God.

If you feel you are out there in the wilderness needing to speak your truth, the comfort of God beckons you.

If you feel you need to have your experience validated, then God hears your cries.

If you feel you need some light in the darkness, then call on the God of Israel who heard the cries of the people who had sent into exile in Babylon to rescue you from the exile you may feel in your own heart.

Whatever you seek, God waits for you.  God patiently waits to hear our cries, waits for us to make our paths straight to prepare for God’s coming near to us.

The message of Advent is that we are listened to, that God hears our pleas, God waits patiently in God’s time, and if we seek we will find this God.

A voice cries out in the wilderness. What does your voice cry out today?  How will God answer it?

Advent I B You are the potter

I have never done work with clay but it looks like fun—you get to get dirty while creating something pretty.  My friend who is a potter works wonders with colors and uses a very hot kiln to bake the clay and make it brittle and hard.  Working with clay seems to be meditative, and potters have said as much. In seminary our professor of spirituality gave us all some colored clay to work with while she lectured one day.  It was a soothing activity, as we got the clay warm in our hands and pliable enough to move around into shapes.  I don’t remember what I made, but I do remember the calming effect of the clay in my hands.

I am told by potters that they can spend a great deal of time working on a piece only to have it produce a hairline crack after firing in the oven, rendering it useless as a mug or vase.  Many potters say that it took them many tries to get it right.  Making things with clay takes knowledge and skill.

A very old hymn I remember from my childhood went:  “Have your own way Lord, have your own way. You are the potter I am the clay,” echoing our words from Isaiah.  The Isaiah passage is full of the message that God can turn God’s face from us because we are full of sin and unclean—that God has every reason to rebuke us because we do not measure up. So if we are clay in the hands of this potter, God can choose to be near or far from us, depending on God’s judgment of our hearts.

This message of Advent is about the people of God making themselves clay in God’s hands, opening their hearts to be the people God’s wants them to be.  This preparation for judgment prepares us for the coming of Christ in our hearts, makes us molded to God’s will for us, so that the love of God has space. God can mold us so that our hearts are pure, but we are not able to do this without God’s assistance.

And Jesus commands to prepare with his warning to keep alert, keep awake, for we do not know the hour of the coming of God’s judgment.

To make ourselves open to God’s will, and God’s judgment, makes us open to all that God has prepared for us—both the cries of despair in our regret and the abundance of love that God will pour upon us with the birth of the babe of Bethlehem.  The message is to keep alert for God’s movement around us and in us.

I believe this alertness is difficult.  It requires an ear to the ground of the movement of the spirit—a sense that God is active around us and through us. And a deep awareness that God’s activity should be the most important thing in our lives and to the world God has created.

Be alert and awake, and yet be like clay waiting for God’s hands to mold us.  One message is about intense awareness of who we are and the other message is about giving up our egos and needs for the greater good of God’s will.  Can we be both alert and passive in the wake of God’s presence? Can we be both on tenterhooks with awareness and as inert as dirt at the same time?

These two messages seem to be contradictory. They seem not to be asking us to do the same thing, yet they come to us for the same reason—to furthering God’s sovereignty in our lives.

In both ways, in our alertness and our inertness, we are in God’s hands. We open our ears and eyes to where God is breaking into human activity, we see perhaps the areas we would judge as good or evil. But the message is that, while we can be aware of God’s activity, judgment is never ours to make. Judgment comes from God. And realize that the word judgment means making us aware of both good and evil. We tend to see judgment only toward the evil, but the opposite is making love grow in the world. God does both—condemns the evil of the world and helps us grow the love.

That God is in charge is the message of both these passages today.  God has control over the earth, over evil.  God takes control of the judging of all that is and it is therefore not our job.  We can rely on God’s judgment to make all things come out for God’s realm of love and light, but this will happen when God the potter decides.

These messages seem to make us passive in our faith, but really they are the opposite. The sovereignty of God requires us to have the most faith possible that our human activity can only participate with or for God, but that God controls the ultimate outcome. God can use even the most evil acts for furthering love in the world and God can redeem the most degraded things into things of love and beauty.  It takes great faith in God to let God have the reins of control over the world.

As we do the preparation required of us in the season of Advent, we come to grips with these ultimate events of heaven and hell, of God’s judgment on us and the entire world. We ask that God would mold us and use us, to keep us alert for the breaking in of love and light.  That Advent would be for us a season of reflection, of meditating on God’s calling, and of trusting in faith that God’s will makes all things right at the end.

Proper 26A Pride and Power

Today’s gospel, if it were to have a title might be called Pride and Power, although it has little resemblance to anything Jane Austen wrote.

The abuse of power that Jesus confronts today in the Jewish synagogue seems much more like the abuses that the Occupy Wall Street groups are protesting.  That movement that has spread across the country has many different aspects to it, but one message protests against corporate greed.  The organizational structure of our financial institutions is very complex, nothing like the structure of power in 1^st century synagogues, but the message seems to be the same—we can’t trust some of those in power to lead us because their behavior goes against the very things they are trying to teach us.

In the synagogue leaders, the gospeller of Matthew sees abuse of power in the way the leaders teach one thing but do another. Pride can easily take over those in power.  We see it in some doctors who tell us how to live but who abuse drugs themselves.  We see it in some politicians who want justice and equity for people, but who themselves live with great amounts of wealth. If you look for it, you can find the sin of pride in some of those wielding power. 

Even church leaders are not immune to this pride.  The community of Matthew seemed to be wrestling with their church leaders as their new Christianity began to be established.  Whenever a new group challenges the old way of doing things as they were, the abuses of those holding power are usually challenged too.  Which is why change in organizations can help clean out abuses, make organizations become more attuned to their real missions.  In churches today, these reorganizations take place with the coming of new leadership, like the reorganization going on in our diocese now.

It is never bad when leaders are questioned about their actions, challenged to aquit themselves when what they do does not jibe with what they say.  Even parents deal with this kind of challenge by teens on a fairly regular basis.  And each of us have power over something or someone in some aspect of our lives, and are subject to questioning how our beliefs square with our actions.  Do we preach one thing but do another?  These questions can lead us to the truth about ourselves and seeing hard to take places where our own pride has taken over.

But most of us do not have power, in the sense of synagogue leaders who tell others how to live faithful lives. Some groups among us lack power of any kind—those who are down and out through economic setbacks for instance, many of whom will be coming to our coat closet in the next few weeks to get help. Giving away a coat does not make Holy Trinity change the powerlessnesss they feel, but it may help look for a job because they will have the proper cold weather clothes now.  A child will not suddenly stop being different because they live in poverty, but they may be able to hold their head up a little higher with a new parka.

What we do here at Holy Trinity, even the small things like giving away a coat, makes a difference in other people’s lives, and if our faith means nothing else, it means asking those hard questions about ourselves:  do our actions as a faith community jibe with the faith we profess?

In visiting the sick and homebound, I often hear about powerlessness.  Those who have lost their ability to care for themselves through age and disability tell me they feel of little importance. Some cry when I visit; one person tells me directly they feel unworthy to have me visit them.  This is the opposite of the sin of pride. God condemns the sin of pride, but these feelings of lack of worth are not what God intends either.  God intends us all to feel we have something of worth inside us, and that this worth can be shared with all we come in contact with.  How do I tell that to someone who cannot leave the house or nursing home, but knows they may spend the rest of their days away from the mainstream of human contact? 

Our society is so tied to productivity and efficiency in how we think about ourselves, we lose the most important fact about existence: that we are made in God’s image, are worthy merely because of our existence, not because of what we do in our profession, how productive we are, whether we even have a job.  Powerlessness comes from being down economically in our society, being down because we don’t feel we have a say in our lives, being down by virtue of being the worker bee not the executive.  In all these ways, our society makes us believe we have nothing to offer, we are not important.

But Jesus says today—the least will be first. In God’s eyes, those who make it their mission to serve others who are down will be given the keys to the kingdom. In God’s eyes, those who use their power for others, not for bettering themselves, see what God’s kingdom means here and now.

None of us are perfect in backing up our beliefs with our actions. None of can say we always, every day and hour, use our own power without abusing others. And some of us can say that we lack power and we may feel unworthy.  But listen to what God is saying: you are worthy because you are a child of God. Give up pride, it doesn’t make you more worthy in God’s eyes. Make your own powerlessness a source of humility, and a source of the sense of your reliance on all God has done for you.