First Tuesday in Advent

Amos 3:1-11; 2 Peter 1:12-21; Matthew 21:12-22

So Jesus enters Jerusalem, and a party turns into a riot.  Jesus goes to the temple and overturns everything - not only tables, but hierarchies and expectations.  He heals people, he calls his people to return to prayer, but the religious authorities are outraged: such disorder cannot be of God.  Such costly chaos, such unauthorized teaching and healing, cannot be of God.  Because we know how God works - right?  God follows the rubrics in the Prayer Book and the resolutions of convention.  Where would we be if everyone just followed Jesus, prayed from their heart, and worshipped together?  Where would we be if we just turned to one another and shared?  Where would we be if we listened to the prophets who warn us to turn to God?  It would be a mess, for sure.  A holy mess.

But if we do continue to do business as usual, then an unholy mess awaits.  When we confuse our buildings and budgets with the Gospel, or shrink from preaching the Gospel because of the impact on giving, or tailor our message to not offend, at some point we find ourselves captured as surely as the temple authorities in Jesus’ day.  The glorious advent of Jesus comes to look like a problem rather than the sum of all our desires and dreams.  

Today’s Gospel gives us our alternatives.  While the establishment folks are complaining, the blind and the lame and the children are rejoicing - over the same events! One sees usurpation and disorder; the other sees salvation.

Which do you choose to be today?  What holy mess is awaiting you?

First Monday in Advent

Amos 2:6-16; 2 Peter 1:1-11; Matthew 21:1-11

Advent means “coming to.”  How fitting, then, that we begin by reading of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, a reading usually read on Palm Sunday.  If this is fitting, though, it’s not what we expect in Advent.  But isn’t that how it should be?  

Advent is not a time to expect what we already know.  As we count the days and hum the familiar tunes, we already know what’s coming - or so we think.  Parties.  Shopping.  Maybe Lessons and Carols.  A pageant.  A tree.  We know how it goes.

Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “We persist in saying that we keep vigil in expectation of the Master.  But in reality we should have to admit, if we were sincere, that we no longer expect anything.”  And in this, he says, we lose what is “perhaps the supreme Christian function and the most distinctive characteristic of our religion” - expectation for what we cannot know.

To expect to be surprised - to expect God to do more than we can ask or imagine: this is our wild hope.  

The crowds who welcomed Jesus included many who knew what they expected in a Messiah.  They could only shrug at this clown on a donkey.  Later, they joined the crowd in turning on Jesus.  They knew what was coming: the Empire would win.  But they were wrong.  Long after Rome crumbled, in an age when we study Rome as an artifact, people’s lives continue to be transformed by encountering this surprising Human One.  The kingdom of God continues to break into our lives, if we will but look.

What do you expect this season?  What seems likely, given your circumstances and hopes?

Let it go.

Expect miracles.  Expect to be surprised, and to be a surprise.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

First Sunday in Advent

Amos 1:1-5,13-28; 1 Thess. 5:1-11; Luke 21:5-19

And we’re off!  Advent seems like a gentle season, a time of quiet anticipation, but in fact it’s a time of preparation for Christ’s return: a time to pull up our socks and light our lamps and look around for signs.  Our readings throughout will call us to reflect and return to God.

We begin with Amos’ foreboding message: God roars from Zion, speaking punishment for those who have oppressed the poor and helpless (including that “same girl” that “father and son go in to”), and profaned God’s house.  Luke’s Jesus predicts war and famine and earthquake and persecution.  Paul writes of sudden destruction.  The Day of the Lord is not a Hallmark event.  It is a time of accounting and revealing.

If Advent is not a cozy time, neither is it something to fear.  Paul tells us to use the time to encourage one another and build up each other.  If we live well, if we “belong to the day,” we need not fear.  

I spend a lot of time outside in the dark.  The dark is a time for seeing things that we miss during the day, like the moon and the stars.  But even in the dark I aim to “belong to the day.”  Through daily practices of prayer, reflection, service, exercise, and stewardship, I cultivate the light I need to see Jesus coming.  I don't need weapons; I need only protect myself with “faith and love, and . . .  the hope of salvation.”  That’s all!  Just open my heart, stand firm, change my whole life!  

As I begin this Advent journey, I pray that my light is sufficient to illumine my path.  I pray to keep awake, to look for signs of God’s grace, to testify to what I see.  I pray to prepare.  And I pray for all of you.  May God give us grace to encourage one another, and to be encouraged.  Blessed Advent to you!

Sister Shane’s Advent Blog Starts Tomorrow!

Join me for reflections on the daily readings following the Episcopal lectionary.  Jesus will be telling parables about the kingdom of God and the end times, on his way to death and resurrection.   What’s that got to do with a baby in a manger?  Stay tuned!