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Some Advent Reflections (2)

Dec 9, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality

Sunday, December 9 – Scripture Readings:
Psalm 114, 115; Amos 6:1-14; 2 Thessalonians 1:5-12; Luke 1:57-68

I’m struck today by the contrast between the words of the psalmist, Amos, Paul, and then Zechariah at the birth of his son, John.

The Psalmist says:
Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
who turns the rock into a pool of water,
and flint into a spring of water. (114:7-8)

Amos says:
But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood – you who rejoice…who say, “Have we not by our own strength taken Karnaim for ourselves?” Indeed, I am raising up against you a nation, O house of Israel, says the Lord, the God of hosts, and they shall oppress you… (12b-14)

Paul says:
[Those who do not know God] will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might… (9)

And Zechariah, as a brand new father, says:
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. (68)

Words that speak of a trembling fear of God. Words that speak of God’s oppression of God’s people. And words that speak of God’s blessing, favor, and redemption. All words of God-with-us, Emmanuel. I certainly prefer the latter, don’t you?

But what if it’s not either/or; rather both/and?

During Advent (and frankly all year long), Scripture requires that we interact with a voice of God that is clearly about judgment, a God in whom we should fear, a God who articulates significant disappointment and plans for oppression, a God who, at least from Paul’s perspective, intends to punish those who do not obey Jesus’ gospel. We read of a God who, through the birth of John, is fulfilling prophecy (even like that above) and looking favorably on God’s people and redeeming them. One could be, understandably, confused or at least be tempted to just stick with the gospel passage.

How are we to make sense of these seemingly mixed messages? How are we to let these words coexist and remain in a both/and reality?

Maybe I’m an exception, but I don’t find this all that hard. It feels far more like my reality. Of course, my preference is to stick with the favor and redemption stuff, but that belies what I experience and know to be true.

Nearly every day I face experiences that provoke fear on some level, feel like oppression, and have me longing for punishment (for others, of course). I don’t have the luxury of a life that stays only in places of God’s kindness and blessing. Further, I don’t really think that’s God’s expectation or plan.

It’s appropriate that Zechariah’s words come out of the context of labor and birth. It’s appropriate that the larger context of this passage has us hearing more of Elizabeth than her husband; that it’s her labor, her rejoicing, her naming that tells us this story. That’s the reality of life: out of labor – its pain, its anguish, its seeming-endlessness – that life bursts forth, life that offers favor and redemption.

This is our both/and reality: labor – its pain, its anguish, its seeming-endlessness and life that bursts forth with a God offering us favor and redemption.

This is our both/and reality: fear, oppression, punishment (whether or own or our desire for others’) and God’s blessing.

This is our both/and Advent: a God-with-us, Emmanuel who speaks through psalmists, a prophet, an apostle like Paul, and a father’s words about the God who gave him a son via the labor of his wife.

Both/and not either/or. This is reality. And into such, we are told of a real, flesh-and-blood god who comes, again and again, not to take away the harder, even harsh aspects of our day-to-day life, but to inhabit them, to dwell in their/our midst, to live himself in places of fear, oppression, punishment and favor and redemption.

I choose both/and. You?

Making Hard Choices

Oct 15, 2007 | Sacred Stories, Women's Wisdom

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live. ~ Flora Whittemore

A lovely sentiment, but far more palpable – and even painful – when we have to live with those decisions.

I had to make a hard decision this weekend. If it only impacted me, it would be easier to bear; but it didn’t. I wasn’t just deciding the life I live, as Flora Whittemore espouses. I was deciding, at least for a time, the lives that others would live, as well. That’s a lot of pressure; pressure I wish wasn’t mine. Still, hard choices sometimes have to be made. Consequences ensue. Disappointment and frustration are inevitable.

How do I hold on to myself in the midst of making such a choice? How do I continue walking forward when my deepest desire and instinct is to turn and run for cover? I’m not sure, but at least for tonight, I’m slowed in my impulse to escape by returning to the story of the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet. She chose to do something that was totally against the grain and which incurred her even more contempt than she already knew. Somehow she trusted her internal wisdom enough that she could break through all that would have kept her playing things safe. She acted. She moved. She let herself be seen.

And…my hunch is that her life didn’t get all that better because of it – at least externally. She made a hard choice, knowing there would be a price to pay and consequences that would ensue. She’s a beautiful, strong, and amazing woman.

I wish I could say that my hard choice fell in the same realm as her self-sacrificing and beautifully worshipful one. Mine could hardly be said to resemble hers, at all. Still, she encourages me. And what’s more, the love she experiences because of her choice comforts me.

Maybe that’s the key: no matter the choices we make or their ramifications, we are still loved – deeply, unswervingly, unreservedly – by the Divine. I think I can live with my hard choice knowing such.

Choices come and go. Some are better than others. Some are harder than others. But being loved no matter what? That defines and decides my life in ways that offer me hope, encouragement, and rest.

I needed to make a hard choice. Even more, I believe I needed the hard choice to move me toward remembering, experiencing, and encountering the Divine who loves me before, in the midst, and after. That’s good news at the end of a long, hard day.

On Money & Power

Aug 20, 2007 | Sacred Stories, Women's Wisdom

I’ve been thinking much these past days about money – how short it is, how fast it goes, how I’m always wishing for more.

I’ve also been bumping up against issues of power – its assumptions, its privilege, its exclusion.

Then today I came across this quote by George MacDonald:

To have what we want is riches, but to be able to do without is power.

How’s that for messing with the categories? It certainly messes with me. I often confuse the two – and I doubt I’m alone. More often it seems that those with riches are those with power. The converse is also often true – or at least it seems so: the less money, the less power.

I’m wondering today what it would be like to redefine both of these words; certainly for myself, but in other contexts and on behalf of others, as well.

  • What if wealth was not something to be attained, but something willingly done without?
  • What if wealth was something I chose to not worry about so much? OK: obsess about.
  • What if my letting go of this category of meaning or significance for my life was actually what ushered me into more wealth, albeit of a different kind, and power – also of a different kind?
  • What if power was not something grabbed; something that just goes with the territory of wealth, influence, gender, privilege?
  • What if power was something I intentionally chose (and experienced) by seeing wealth in a different way?
  • What if power was more available the less I desired such (perhaps even money, as well)?

There’s a story in the New Testament Scriptures that tells of the Widow’s Mite.

While seeing contributions/offerings made by rich men, Jesus highlights how a poor widow donates only two mites, the least valuable coins available at the time. She gave everything (if not more) than she had while others, those with power and money, gave only a small portion of their wealth.

Who was esteemed? Who had the most “power?” Who had the most riches? She did. A woman. A widow. Poor. Shunned. Ignored. Silenced. Unseen. Powerful!

What if, indeed?!?

Choosing the Storm

Mar 6, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality

I’ve been thinking a lot about how strong my proclivity is for calm; for a life that is tame, sedate, and predictable. 

Somehow, I’ve gotten the notion into my head that surely God’s desire for me would be a life of comfort and ease. God’s protection and promised presence would surely look like secure relationships, finances, profession, retirement, future…

I’m aware that at least in part, this incessant and often subconscious demand has come about by growing up and living in Western theology and culture that tells me I not only can, but deserve to have it all and that this is what God wants for me too. Even though I know that this is a lie, it’s hard to shake. I find myself asking questions like, “Can’t things just be easy?” “Can’t my life go the way I want it to?” “Why does life often feel like such a struggle?” 

And then I begin to wonder: if God were to answer these questions the way I want (translate: by granting me a perfect, conflict-free life) who would that god be? Surely not the God I know from Scripture. 

Who is that God? 

It’s the God who sleeps in the storm: 

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were lled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:35-41) 

This is not a tame, sedate, predictable story. This is not a tame, sedate, predictable God. And the natural question to follow: Why would I anticipate my life to be such if this is the God with whom I’m in relationship? 

I’ll admit it: I’m somewhat afraid to let this narrative (and nearly every other one found in the pages of the Bible) define my God or shape my life. If I chose to reflect on, believe in, and live by this image of God – a God who was nonplussed in a treacherous storm – who might I become? That potential – to be like that God – dangerous, risky, not afraid – is more than I often want to imagine or bear…but not in the ways you might think. 

The following two quotes speak beautifully to what it might be like, at least in part, to let the images and stories of scripture define my God…define my life: 

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive – the risk to be alive and express what we really are. (Don Miguel Ruiz) 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (Marianne Williamson) 

Ultimately, the disciples’ fear is not about either death or being inadequate. The disciples’ fear is over what to do with a God who can sleep through such a storm, who can choose to calm it, who has dangerous, unquenchable, beyond-imagining power. Who might they become if they really understood, believed in, and followed this guy? 

And like the disciples, our fear is not really over what might happen to us, what might overtake us, what storms might bluster and blow. Our fear is of who we might actually be if we believed in this God of Mark 4, this God of the Bible. Our fear is that we might actually have to let the wind blow; that we might just have to let go of our incessant demand for a life of ease – and the all-too-familiar comfort of doubting God’s faithfulness when things don’t go our way (or God seems to be asleep). We might actually have to get wet! 

I think, maybe, that’s what I want… 

Maybe – by Mary Oliver 

Sweet Jesus, talking 
his melancholy madness, 
stood up in the boat 
and the sea lay down,
silky and sorry. 
So everybody was saved 
that night. 

But you know how it is 
when something 
different crosses 
the threshold—the uncles 
mutter together, 
the women walk away, 
the younger brother begins 
to sharpen his knife. 

Nobody knows what the soul is. 
It comes and goes 
Like wind over the water— 
Sometimes, for days, 
you don’t think of it. 

Maybe, after the sermon, 
after the multitude was fed, 
one or two of them felt 
the soul slip forth 
like a tremor of pure sunlight 
before exhaustion, 
that wants to swallow everything, 
gripped their bones and left them 
miserable and sleepy, 
as they are now, forgetting 
how the wind tore at the sails 
before he rose and talked to it— 
tender and luminous and demanding 
as he always was— 
a thousand times more frightening 
than the killer sea. 

No, I’m certain of it: this is the God I want to follow – tender, luminous and demanding, a thousand times more frightening than the killer sea. 

This is the God I want to reflect. This is the life I want to live: choosing the storm.

Whose Story Am I In?

Jan 21, 2007 | My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality

I just finished writing this entire post, went to read through it from the beginning before hitting “publish,” and lost the whole thing. That somehow seems appropriate given the subject matter… 

I’ve been reading Genesis this month. I’m attempting to stick with the plan and get through the entire Bible in 2007. This morning I must have read 2/3 of Genesis, which gives you an idea of how far behind I am already. If you must know…I should be to Exodus 14 by today. ‘Got a ways to go. 

Anyway, as I’ve been reading I’ve been struck by the endless drama and ever-present crisis that seems to be in the midst of someone’s narrative nearly all the time. It feels familiar, certainly within the text, but also in my own life. 

What am I to do with this text; this collection of stories that seem to be about particular people (and are, of course, to some extent) but are really about God? What do their stories – filled with such drama and crisis tell me about this God?

For one thing, this God is not so concerned with individual plot twists and turns; mistakes and foibles and minutae that are constantly creating such messes. That’s comforting. This God is weaving a much larger story that inculcates individual stories but is far more redemptive, passionate and powerful than any one story could possibly be. Comforting, yes – but also a bit disconcerting. 

Frankly, I want my story to be the one in which God is a part, not the other way around. Seems like if that were true, then drama and crisis and pain and struggle wouldn’t have to be the experience du jour, but instead, peace and calm and ease and freedom. Apparently that’s not the way it works – for anyone in the Biblical text or for me. 

Perhaps it’s the very reality that I want things the other way around that creates the drama and crisis in the first place. 

Will I let my life be a part of God’s story? Will I allow my own drama and crises to be evidence of God’s grace, kindness, redemption, and love? Will I rest and breathe deeply in the reality that my story doesn’t have to be the be-all, end-all? Will I allow the plot twists and turns I experience on a daily basis become the gentle (and sometimes bellowing) call to a larger story, to God’s story, of which my narrative is a part? 

In my best moments I don’t want to be in charge of my story…not really. Sure, I’d like to have not lost my previously typed blog text (even though it was nothing like what I’ve now written). But I want rest and peace far more than control. I want to know that the drama and crisis of my life are not the end of things; that the God who loves stories, certainly those in the Biblical text, but also mine, is writing, directing, and producing a story that is far bigger, better, and more beautiful than I could imagine or dream. That is comforthing. I will rest…maybe after I’ve read a few more chapters yet tonight.

I Am This Woman

Oct 1, 2006 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom

I wrote what follows for the women’s event, Conversations (mentioned in my last post). As the days have progressed I’ve marinated in these two realities and wondered – even more than when I wrote them – how they might be true for me. 

In the first chapter of Proverbs, a series of verses appear that speak about wisdom – wisdom described as feminine. 

Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks…Proverbs 1:20-21 

What if “wisdom” at the city gates is not just the use of the feminine pronoun, a descriptive metaphor, but really me?

As a woman in leadership, this image feels more than familiar. I often feel on the outside. I’m near the city and can even see what’s inside, but I’m not ever let completely in. I often speak, raise my voice, and yes, even cry out; but am not heard.

And I know that I am wise – not in metaphor, but in reality. From my on-the-edges viewpoint I see different things than those inside. From where I sit, and sometimes stand, I hear different things than those inside. From where I live, work, and love I experience different things (personally, institutionally, relationally) than those inside. These sights, sounds, and experiences gift me with wisdom.

It’s a painful reality: growth and beauty coming from misunderstanding, exclusion, and pain. Will I continue to cry out? Will I continue to speak, hear, and act in (and as) wisdom? Will I continue to raise my voice in ways that call others to see beyond their walls, their perspectives, their normative realities, their privilege and power?

These verses are more than a metaphorical use of the feminine pronoun for me. I know this woman. I am this woman. 

In the last chapter of Proverbs, a series of verses appear that have been understood as a prescriptive text for the perfect woman/wife. She is clothed in strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. Proverbs 31:25 

What if this woman is not just the perfect wife, but a metaphor for God’s hope on my behalf; imagery of how God invites me to live?

In these words I simultaneously see a glorious woman and a captivating little girl. The woman stands tall. She walks with condence. She is unafraid. She has seen much, heard much, experienced much and survived. She does not compromise herself and she can be gentle, graceful, and kind because she has known much pain and harm.

The young girl holds her hand over her mouth as she suppresses peals of giggling. She has been given a secret to hold and it’s all she can do to keep it to herself. She runs and leaps and dances through her days because she is filled with the joy of what this secret means – for herself and for others. She is unafraid. She is spontaneous, playful, and even mischievous. She knows no pain or harm.

These two, combined, speak to me of what I most desire for myself. All that has gone before and all that is yet to come enables me to be clothed in strength and honor. And what I know and hold deeply in my heart of God’s love and care for me and others is what enables me to laugh, even if only to myself.

Will I stand tall? Will I wear the strength and dignity that are uniquely mine because of the pain and harm I have known? Will I laugh because of the God who shares a secret with me that no one and nothing can destroy? These verses are more than just a description of the perfect wife. I know this woman. I am this woman. 

These women – metaphorical and real – are who I want to be: wise, listening to and living with those on the margins, gaining strength through perseverance and struggle, dignied and fearless, forever laughing with the abandon of a child. God knows and loves this woman. I am becoming this woman.