Prepare the way

I was not ready for Advent this year.   My stuff wasn't out of the attic, I didn't have any candles, and the worst part--I was just not in the mood.  I wasn't in the mood for blasting the word REJOICE across the church every Sunday, not in the mood for Rite I, and I didn't have a clue what to get everybody for Christmas.  

Prepare the way of the Lord indeed.  

For some reason, Advent happened anyway.   The wreath went up in the church, the candles were purchased, I even procured a new "Advent Bush" that could withstand the ravages of my puppy by living on a table top.  Rite I happened in church, and we belted those rejoices again like we do every year.   Voices are missing and they are being missed, but Advent is happening anyway.  

Life is hard sometimes.  Preparing for Christmas, and by way of that preparing to usher in the Kingdom of God, isn't all chocolates behind numbered windows in an advent calender and haunting ancient hymns.  It's getting up every morning in December, whether you want to or not, and saying "even so, come Lord Jesus" again. 

Mary knew this.  (We haven't even gotten to her in the readings yet.  I think this coming Sunday we get to hear about John the Baptist.)   Mary had her life disrupted by an archangel who appeared ill advised on mechanics of human biology.    I have my days when I think she must have been a little bit psychic because she was faced with an angel of the Lord telling her she's going to bear a son, the Messiah even, and she has the big brass lady balls to tell him that she can't be pregnant because she's a virgin.   It's the holy version of staring down your doctor when they ask suspiciously when your last period was and telling them you have to be exposed to be in that condition.   So either they'd chatted before, or the Lady was totally and utterly caught off guard to the point of reacting to this news with exasperated unbelief.

I LOVE this about her, by the way.   Very young, vulnerable, about to be exposed to a series of life threatening social situations that probably shamed her to her very core despite none of it being what people thought, and she's making sure the archangel Gabriel understands how these things happen.

Life is hard sometimes.   Life is hard but God makes beauty from ashes. 

Even so, come... 

Shadow days and Coming down

Acts 9:26-31 (NRSV)
26 When he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27But Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus. 28So he went in and out among them in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. 29He spoke and argued with the Hellenists; but they were attempting to kill him. 30When the believers learned of it, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. 31 Meanwhile the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up. Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.

They were afraid of him because they did not believe he was a disciple.  I can understand that.  He was, after all, the guy who had been roaming the land looking for followers of The Way to have drug out and murdered.   He was Saul.   Barnabas,  (a name the apostles had laid upon him which means 'son of encouragement'), took him in.  Paul immediately proceeds to make an ass of himself by running around preaching without a license (*sarcasm...or is it?) and they took him away and sent him off to Tarsus for seminary and to get his head on straight.

The Church hasn't changed much in 2,000 years, has it?

Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a bad thing.  I remember what an insufferably enthusiastic lunatic I was in the early days of my faith.  I remember all the things I thought I knew.  I remember how ridiculously exciting it all was.  I remember.  I do.   I don't think it was a bad thing.  I just know that it's probably a good thing I didn't have regular internet access and a blog.

Why?  I barely knew a single blessed thing about what I was talking about.   Oh, sure, I knew the basics.  The bare basics.  I just didn't get it yet.  I didn't know better than to run around right after having been converted from having murderous rage against this new sect of Judaism speaking boldly and arguing with Hellenists..

Oh wait, that was Paul.  He stayed insufferably enthusiastic and was later crowned the king of run-on sentences but those years he spent away obviously did him good.  He got less 'fraidy cat looks from everyone after a while and he became the apostle to the Gentiles we all love to read cold from the lectern at the last minute because someone didn't show up.  That guy.   He still had issues.  Couldn't really decide whether sex was a good thing or a bad thing.   He liked to self depreciate and then turn around and give his credentials.    Made lists of all the people who weren't  going to heaven.  Jesus seems to have made a ...

Oh consider what he started with!  You don't get over being a Zealot over night.  Not without having a psychotic break.  He had a lot to deal with.  I'm not sure everyone liked him all the time, but they learned to respect him, and love him for who he was.   It took God loving him before he was lovable, when he was a vile TV preacher type on steroids with connections in law enforcement, to make him that guy we name cathedrals after.

Be patient.   Be patient and try to remember what you used to be like.

Perfect Love

Last Sunday I arrived at church, reading "cold" again, to find that I had been assigned to read something I repeat to myself on a regular basis from the lectern.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

I only say the part in bold, but what can I say? I'm a stickler for context who has a hard time dealing with proof texted sermons.  (One would do well not to commit sins that are one's pet peeves in others.  I John, chapter 4, for those of you who like to check up on people to make sure they're not making stuff up and calling it scripture.)  Perfect love casts out fear.   I spent time in my teens with people obsessed with spiritual warfare.  Pentecostal types who call themselves non denominational.  They liked to talk about spirits and demons a lot.  Spirit of fear, demon of fear, spirit of profanity (OOPS, I'm in trouble), spirit of homosexuality, spirit of compulsive shopping, spirit of sugar addictions, spirits of depression and, as Christy Lyn would say, a partridge and a pear tree.  There was a lot of magical thinking involved, what can I say?   In my teens, I thought of fear as a very nasty, very tiny demon that did a lot of big damage.

I haven't really stopped thinking that way about fear.   Fear is a very powerful thing.  It is very useful at times, but at others, it makes us do stupid things.    Stupid, cowardly, short sighted things.   I don't even remember when the phrase became important to me, but it is.  Perfect love casts out fear.  Perfect love.  God's perfect love casts out fear.  That thing that keeps you from doing the things you know you ought to do.  That makes you think you shouldn't speak up about things that you know are wrong.  Perfect love casts out fear. 

Last Sunday, as I arrived for services worried sick and frightened for my family because a relative was near death, I found myself being asked to read those words from the lectern.  .  Perfect love casts out fear.  I needed to hear that, and I was about to have to deliver it to the whole congregation.   The assembly of the upright who manage to deal with the busyness of May and still make it to church. (The faithful remnant, if you will)  I stumbled.  I didn't get the phrasing right.  I fell victim to the dreadful commas.   But there it was, amplified by the sound system and the way I read in large space.  Perfect love casts out fear.  

I was still afraid for my family.  I knew God was there in the midst of all this, and I know that there are some wounds that just can't heal on earth, but this man was an absolutely enormous presence in their lives.   He was in mine too, in a different way.  No matter how long it had been since I'd seen him, when I did, I knew that he loved me.  He made me feel important.   I felt the impact of this today at his funeral.  A whole room full of people who had benefited from being loved by this brilliant man.   I don't think we need to be afraid anymore.   The things we'd feared have come to pass and the things we hope for are to come in a way that will be perfect.  

We love God because he first loved us.  We still have fear because we have not reached perfection in love but we will.  Perfect love, God's perfect love, casts out fear.   He doesn't take our pain away, but he shares it with us, and in doing so sanctifies it and us.  We don't have to be afraid because we are not alone.  I pray that some day we will reach perfection in love, but until then we need to keep trying.  Keep remembering.  Keep whispering under our breath.  

Good Friday and cats

I woke up this morning with a cat on my back. Janie Cat is strange little thing. If you try and pick her up, she runs from you like you're going to kill her (or take her to the vet), but if you sit still she will sit on your lap and absolutely not move for anything.

Except a sneeze. A sneeze or a loud noise or anything remotely "scary". If you sneeze or or spray air freshener that cat will rocket off your lap (or back) like

the devil is after her.

She's been like this since she was a kitten. I woke up this morning with her perched and purring on my back and I realized, laughing a little bit, what would happen if I sneezed.

She'd shoot out of the room like a rat out of an aqueduct. The readings at church last night came to mind. Peter and his enthusiasm. First, that'd he'd never let his master serve him, and then, when Jesus explained himself, that he, errr... over do it. (For context, click here) His emphatic denial that he would ever himself deny his relationship with Christ, and his subsequent denial of Christ. No, it wasn't a sneeze. It was much, much, scarier. He didn't run either. He stayed there to see what would happen, and when threatened with association, he said he didn't know those people. Peter seems like an emotional man who manages to make calculated choices under pressure.

I think the God-part of Christ's mind understood that about him. The God in Man part seemed to be having a harder time. In the garden, his friends, drunk from Passover dinner, can't stay awake with him even when he asks. He implores them, begs them to stay up with them. He's upset, he knows he's going to die, and there they are, too drunk and tired to stay up with him. (I realize I'm making a big accusation here, to some people, but wine is a customary part of a Seder and given everything that was going on I think it's safe to say they may have been inclined to overindulge a bit) They just don't understand what's going on, or they don't want to, and they can't seem to get it together to help him through this.

I think that's part of the tragedy of the crucifixion. Jesus, who couldn't catch a moment to himself during his ministry, who had to hide from people to pray, was all by himself on the night he didn't want to be. The people he was trying to help, out of fear and jealousy, were going to murder him. His disciples were too frightened, drunk and confused to stay up with him. I'd like to say I would have done things differently, but I know better.

I know better.

I hope you do too. We call this day Good Friday because it's the day we remember that we were redeemed at a great price. The Son of Man suffered, and suffered alone, to rescue us all from ourselves. To show us that we don't have to be afraid, that God is bigger than our weaknesses, stronger than our worst moments, and kinder than we deserve when we scatter like... frightened cats at a scary noise.

Even when we're too drunk, tired, and scared to do stay up and pray with someone we love who's freaking us right out.

It's time to stop crapping our pants.

What do I need to be afraid of now?

Stephen Colbert likes to ask his guests that question.

Click on yahoo.com or msn.com at any given moment and they'll tell you. Tonight, right now, it's: Economic Worries All Over the World, World Powers Seek to Control Europe Debt Crisis, BofA settlement pushes up home default notices, and Wildfire Threat. Every other day, every other business day anyway, it's that the stock market is plummeting because someone is afraid something is going to happen. It used to be color coded terror threats. Now it's bed bugs. Bed bugs, and grocery stores trying to trick me into buying something that a blogger thinks I don't need. Oh and did you know that the recession turned suburbanite lazy people into pragmatists?

While I am it, since when did the words European, Iraqi, Greek, and Egyptian disappear from the English language? It's like people have forgotten what adjectives associated with countries are.

I don't think we're going to get through to the media, any of it, conservative, liberal, or computers that churn out the next big thing based on an algorithm, so it's up to us. This lemming like fear is what is paralyzing this country. The sky is not falling. If the government asks corporations to pay taxes, they're going to keep on making money so they can keep making money. It's counter-intuitive to think that anything is going to happen if my employer's tax rate goes up besides her telling us to sell more insurance. Oh, I might have to glue together a few more of the old chairs we've been slowing replacing (particle board is awful) for a little bit longer, but it won't kill anyone.

Bed bugs, while they might leave a nasty welt on your skin, are not going to kill you. It is not worth worrying about. An entire industry has grown up around the fear of nasty bugs... and it's just stupid. From what I can see, Wall Street (which still owes all of us an apology) crapping its' collective pants is what keeps making the stock market so volatile.

There are some things that thinking about it too much makes happen. Friends drifting away, for example. Worrying about that, and needling them, or preemptively cutting off ties is a self full filling prophecy. Every little odd thing your body does not mean you have a new disorder. Take enough drugs, and you'll get a few. Work piling up. Money never coming in. Worrying about it doesn't do anyone any good!

Do something. Can't never did anything. Stop making excuses. Stop being afraid. Do something. "Perfect love casts out fear." God is not going to stop loving us. Fear is paralyzing. So take up your mat and walk.

The next time you suspect that the news is reporting on stupid crap so they can get you upset and get better ratings? Turn it off.

We're never going to get out of this recession that's not a recession until we stop crapping our pants as a nation and get back to work. We can do it! This is the United States of America, for God's sake, not some sniveling pile of self pitying some or other whining about bygone former glory.