Advent 19 - Wait and Watch and Pray and Work

As is my usual weekday morning routine, this morning I began the day with a daily devotional reading and meditation and, of course, the morning news (CBS This Morning is my morning show of choice). Today’s lead stories struck me as particularly hard to watch. They included three shooting tragedies that took me aback.

 

-A religious militant opened fire on a school in Pakistan, leaving 141 (many of whom were children) dead and many others wounded.

-Three people dead after an Australian hostage situation.

-An Iraqi War veteran kills his ex-wife and five of her family members.

 

Lord have mercy! These events (though they are by no means the only elements of bad news in the world) seemed to take my breath away! However hard to hear, they immediately made think of Advent. This period of waiting, waiting for the Christ, and waiting for the promise represents exactly how I felt this morning. Yes, I am a man in waiting. I’m waiting for peace! I’m waiting for justice! I’m ready for love!

 

So….I wait. I wait for God. I wait for the manifestation of God’s promise. I wait and watch and pray and work! For this is Advent.

-- Rev. Ray Jordan

Advent 18 - Leaning into Joy

We lit the candle of joy this past Sunday. But joy is hard. It's scary stuff. It's what parents feel as they anticipate the birth of a child. That feeling of joy and yet foreboding -- what if something goes wrong? One of the lessons of Advent and Christmas is that we are all parents -- waiting to give birth to the holy. But can we let ourselves feel the joy in that?

If you haven't discovered the work of Dr. Brene Brown, here is a little joy for your Advent meditation. Brene Brown and Oprah talk about joy, and how to cultivate it in your life. If you are familiar with Brene Brown's work, it will come as no surprise that it's all about vulnerability and gratitude. Just click on the link below:

Brene Brown on Joy

-- Rev. Christine Ng

Advent 17 - Here is Our God

This Sunday we lit the candle of joy on the Advent Wreath. Having my home filled with warm people and wonderful food is one of the great joys of my life. It takes a lot of work to get the house ready for a party. But it is my way of preparing the way, making space – and the holy, it always shows up.

You can see it in the faces of children as they help decorate our Christmas tree (and if a lot of ornaments end up on the lower branches because that’s as high as they can reach so we need to do a little rearranging later – what of it?). It shows up as the kids decorate and eat Christmas cookies. A small boy made one for me – it had a heart on it, and made my heart fill to bursting. You can feel it in the atmosphere as almost inevitably some people end up eating and talking with people they do not know well, so new connections are made. The ties of community are made stronger. You can hear it as a young girl plays flute and we sing Christmas carols.

In the giving and the sharing and the creating and the connecting and the laughing and the singing – here is our God.  

Advent 16 - Good Gifts

I grew celebrating Advent but it wasn’t until I was in seminary that I actually gave real thought to its meaning. Of course, it is the beginning of the Christian calendar, a time that leads us to the recognition of the birth of Jesus. It represents for us a time of waiting, expecting, and finally celebrating God’s good gift. One of my favorite scriptures is found in James 1:17:

 

“Every good and perfect gift comes from above, our Father, the God of light in whom there is not shadow of turning.”

 

Let’s make one thing clear; God gives all things GOOD. God is good. In God there is no changing. Meaning, God is Light but light without a shadow of turning or shifting shadows throughout the day. The Message Translation says it this way: “There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle.”So, if God was in the business of giving good gifts 2,000 years ago, God is not “fickle” and is, thereby, still in the business of giving good gifts today.

God’s gifts are to us and through us, but rarely exclusively for us. We are blessed to be a blessing.  We called to extravagant love and generosity. What God gives to us, we called to offer back in worship of God and service to the world.

This offering includes all of our resources…including our time, talent, and treasure. However, during this time of year I am most reminded of this spiritual principle when considering the gift of our children.  Yes, they are God’s good gift to us (I certainly know my own children have been an incredible blessing in my life), but just as any gift given by God, they are not ours to keep, but to give back to God and the world.

In this thought, I’ll end with a poem/philosophy I try to live by (though I often fail miserably). It is by poet Kahil Gibran. In his poem “On Children,” he writes:

“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
 

You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth."

 

Yes, yes! Praise God from whom all blessings flow! ….But remember, they flow, they’re not stagnant. Thank God for God’s good gift, especially our babies.  

 

-- Rev. Ray Jordan

Advent 15 -- God in the Lowly

Our theme for this week is “God in the Lowly: Looked upon with Favor.” Today in worship we listened to the scriptures about Mary, an unmarried teenage girl from a small town in a patriarchal culture. She describes herself as lowly, and in that time and place, she was. Yet, we are told, she had found favor with God, who saw her not as insignificant or lowly, but as worthy to bear God’s son. Because ours is a God who lifts up the lowly.

            The lowly, the vulnerable. Our God favors these. But do we? Today is the two-year anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, where 20 first-graders and six teachers lost their lives. It doesn’t get more vulnerable than young school children. How have we honored their lives? Or the lives of the children killed – intentionally or unintentionally – by guns every day (based on CDC data compiled by the Brady Campaign, an average of 8 every day)? Those teachers gave up their lives for the children in their care. What have we given up?

            For change to happen, we don’t have to begin by agreeing on a solution. But we do need to agree that there is a problem.

            God wept on December 14, 2012. God’s weeping still. 

            But this Advent, may we sing with the teenage girl who agreed to give birth to the holy in her world: “our souls magnify the Lord” and let the seeds of change grow within us.

-- Rev. Christine Ng

Advent 14 - Celtic Prayer

Celtic-style prayers are particularly good for meditating on God in the world. They invoke a sense of being surrounded by God, and an awareness of God in the ordinary, everyday aspects of life. For the Celts, God wasn’t somewhere “up there,” or not only; and the birth of Christ wasn’t something that happened millennia ago, or not only.

            Because the Celts believe that God is with them in every aspect of their lives and their world, their prayer was often spontaneous or easy to craft or learn, because it simply named that truth. A famous Celtic prayer is St. Patrick’s Breastplate, the last portion of which goes:

Christ behind and before me,

Christ beneath and above me,

Christ with me and in me,

Christ around and about me,

Christ on my left and my right,

Christ when I rise in the morning,

Christ when I lie down at night,

Christ in each heart that thinks of me,

Christ in each eye that sees me,

Christ in each ear that hears me.

Good to think about in Advent, as we wait for the Christ to be born again in us and in our world. That miraculous birth can happen anywhere and everywhere.

             I invite you to write a Celtic-style prayer of your own. Below is a sample you can use for inspiration – or just rewrite this prayer substituting everyday, ordinary things and actions in your own life (like dressing and walking) you want to see God in. Be creative and go in your own direction.

God to enfold me,                              Christ in my life,                   God this morning,

God to surround me,                          Christ in my lips,                   God this noon,

God in my speaking,                          Christ in my hands,               God the evening,

God in my thinking.                           Christ in my heart.                 God this night.

God in my sleeping,                           God in my working,              Be thou before me,

God in my waking,                            God in my playing,                Be thou beside me

God in my watching,                         God in my living,                   Be thou beneath me,

God in my hoping.                             God in my dying.                   Be though behind me.

-- Rev. Christine Ng

Advent 13 -- God in the World

Our theme for this week has been "God in the World." So I thought it would be appropriate to share a music video for this 2014 Advent/Christmas season from the World Council of Churches. Enjoy. How have you seen God in the world?

-- Rev. Christine Ng

Advent 12 - This Moment

            This Advent I have been rereading the words of Henri Nouwen about Advent waiting, and how counter cultural it is. Let me share some of his wisdom with you:

            “Waiting is not a very popular attitude. Waiting is not something that people think about with great sympathy. In fact, most people consider waiting a waste of time. Perhaps this is because the culture in which we live is basically saying, ‘Get going! Do something! Show you are able to make a difference! Don’t jut sit there and wait!’ For many people, waiting is an awful desert between where they are and where they want to go. And people do not like such a place. They want to get out of it by doing something.

            In our particular historical situation, waiting is even more difficult because we are so fearful. One of the most pervasive emotions in the atmosphere around us is fear. People are afraid – afraid of inner feelings, afraid of other people, and also afraid of the future. Fearful people have a hard time waiting, because when we are afraid we want to get away from where we are. But if we cannot flee, we may fight instead. Many of our destructive acts come from the fear that something harmful will be done to us. And if we take a broader perspective – that not only individuals but whole communities and nations might be afraid of being harmed – we can understand how hard it is to wait and how tempting to act. Here are the roots of a ‘first strike’ approach to others. People who live in a world of fear are more likely to make aggressive, hostile, destructive responses than people who are not so frightened. The more afraid we are, the harder waiting becomes. . . .

            It impresses me, therefore, that all of the figures who appear on the first pages of Luke’s Gospel are waiting. Zechariah and Elizabeth are waiting. Mary is waiting. Simeon and Anna, who were there at the temple when Jesus was brought in, are waiting. The whole opening scene of the good news is filled with waiting people And right at the beginning all those people in some way or another hear the words, ‘Do not be afraid. I have something good to say to you.’ . . .

            Waiting, as we see it in the people on the first pages of the Gospel, is waiting with a sense of promise. . . . We can only really wait if what we are waiting for has already begun for us. So waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a movement from something to something more. . . .

            Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing. That’s the secret. The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has already been planted, that something has begun. Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it. A waiting person is someone who is present to the moment, who believes that this moment is the moment.”

I've been thinking that too often out of our fear, we rush in to act, when what it needed is to wait. Wait with a sense of purpose, of resolve, and openness to the work and will of God. Waiting helps us see where we are, so we are prepare to take the actions needed.

I do believe that this moment is the moment. That what we are waiting for has already begun. That a new thing is being born within us, new life, new possibilities perhaps in unexpected places -- places where things may have been barren and without hope. Things that bring us together, with a common purpose -- to give birth to this new holy thing God is doing through us. Like Mary and Elizabeth -- both unexpectedly pregnant, who come together to support each other in their active, growing waiting.

Like Mary and Elizabeth, let us join hands, stand in this moment, be awake to the possibilities and the new things God is doing in us and in our world, and actively wait together in hope. 

Advent 11 -- Let There Be Peace on Earth

Last Sunday we lit the candle of peace on the Advent wreath for this week. Here is a Vince Gill's version of "Let There Be Peace on Earth" for your Advent meditation. This is also appropriate because today is International Human Rights Day, as declared by the UN General Assembly in 1950.