Blessed is She

Luke 1:39-45

Advent 4

December 23, 2012

William G. Carter

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

             We took our pillow and went to the birthing class. I was still a young man, thirty-one, curious about what kind of coaching I could provide my pregnant wife. Those were the last days of pregnancy and I was doing my best to be supportive. Frankly, it wasn’t my body that had been invaded by the gestation of a new life. I was merely the observer. The mother of our child was the participant. And until we walked into the room, I had not realized how much she had been in seclusion.

            That changed in the twinkling of an eye. About twenty other pregnant ladies wobbled around the room, some holding their distended bellies, a couple of them groaning quietly, most all of them ready for the joyous event to come as quickly as possible so they can be over with it.

            The miracle of that moment is that these pregnant women found each other. They met, they chatted. The chatter increased, as their clueless men-folk stood pitifully by. We were the pillow-holders, beginning to wonder what great mystery we had stumbled into.

            Meanwhile the women spoke of significant matters. Did you get sick? Was there much vomiting? When did it stop? My ankles began to swell immediately. This isn’t our first, but it’s harder than the first three. I’m getting tired of these expandable waist slacks; I was a size four before he did this to me. Well, I have a little soccer player inside my womb and we can’t agree on when to settle down at night. Did you see that girl over there? Her baby goes out straight, while mine gave me these enormous hips.

            Twenty confused men stood by helplessly, as women talked together about their pregnancies. There is a grand conspiracy of silence about birthing. As one young mother summed up so eloquently, “If my mama had told me what was coming, I would have thought twice about doing it.”

            Yet this is the biological mystery of how the human race continues. This is how family lines proceed, how the genetic dice are tossed. Every baby comes as a gift, some long anticipated, some unexpected, some wanted, some sadly not. But each child is a gift that God offers for the future of the world.

            Two pregnant women meet in our Bible story. They have a conversation with no men participating. One of them is very old, the other is very young. The young woman traveled some distance to initiate the conversation. She greets the old lady, and then the old lady does all the talking.

            Her name is Elizabeth. She was the daughter of a Jewish priest. Her husband is a Jewish priest, and was the son of a Jewish priest. It was probably an arranged marriage, as many such marriages were. She supported her husband and his work, because it was the same family business, so to speak. She knew what it required, as her husband tended to the ministry of God.

But her life was marked by a great irony. As her husband served a generous God, God had withheld the blessing of a child from Elizabeth. In her fertile years, she had wanted a baby but the child never came. The door stayed shut, as relatives and neighbors birthed their babies and presented them for her husband’s blessing. Prayers for a child had gone unanswered, and Elizabeth had long settled down into advanced middle age. This was her life’s one disappointment. There is no evidence that she was resentful or bitter, just disappointed. She learned to smile while she stayed empty inside.

            But then, about six months before, there was that day when Zechariah came home from the temple. His eyes were wild. His tongue was tied. Something had happened to him. What was it? He could not say.

            It was clear from his pantomime that he was deeply affected by a holy moment in Jerusalem. But what? She had helped him prepare for a most significant event. Zechariah’s division had been scheduled to serve as priests in the temple. While he was there, he was chosen for the first and only time in his life to go into the holiest place on earth. Behind the curtains, deep into the heart of the temple, into the inner chamber – it was said that if God were to appear anywhere on earth, it would happen there.

            And then it happened to Zechariah. The awesome angel appeared and said, “Don’t be afraid. God hears your prayer. Your wife will bear you a son.” In a moment of pure stupidity, the old Jewish priest said, “I don’t know how this could happen. We are as old as Abraham and Sarah . . .”

            The angel said, “Oh, be quiet!” Zechariah stumbled out of there, his face sunburned by glory. He staggered home. Elizabeth caught him, held him close, asked, “Dear heart, are you OK?” Soon after that, she was astonished by his vigor. Repeatedly she was astonished. And when the morning sickness came, she was astonished again.

            A child grew inside her, just as the angel had said. She pondered this deeply. The first time she ever speaks in scripture, she proclaims something profound: “God has replaced disgrace by grace.”

            Now it’s six months later. As she sorts through the laundry, her distant relative’s daughter shows up in her doorframe. The child in her belly gave a kick. Then another one. She dropped the laundry basket and took a breath. As young Mary helped her scoop up the clothing, they began the conversation that has been recorded in today’s text. These two pregnant women speak of their mysteries. They find one another. Neither is hidden from the other. On a purely human level, did they speak of the same surprises that pregnant women share? Of course they did.

Yet the conversation we have is at a different level. As Luke tells it, it is a conversation prompted by the Holy Spirit. Luke loves to talk about the Holy Spirit. He says here, “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” What does that mean? This is Luke’s way of saying that she is full of God. When somebody is “filled with the Holy Spirit,” it means God gets into them. The power of God fills up Elizabeth. The joy of God overflows out of her. The breath of God fills her lungs and she exhales blessings.

            In the temple, her old man Zechariah had his holy moment. This is now hers. God infuses her body and soul. God gets into her, as much as God gets into anybody. Such moments can come to any of us. I believe they can come at any time. They have come for others, they have come to me. It’s an uncalculated event of pure grace, a moment when the Holy Force of the universe becomes deeply personal, and we are affected and changed.

            I recall a couple of years ago. There was a person who was as angry a soul as any I have ever met. She stomped around, created wreckage wherever she went. But that Christmas Eve, her heart completely thawed, and she descended into a flood of tears. When she caught her breath, she explained, “I was singing Silent Night by candlelight, and I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t help myself.” I think I know what it was. God got into her. Or as Luke says, “Filled with the Holy Spirit.”

            Nobody manufactures these moments. They fall on us out of heaven. As Luke introduces us to the coming of Jesus into our world, he says the Spirit of God gets into all kinds of people: Elizabeth, Zechariah, their son John, mother Mary, old Simeon and ancient Anna. The Spirit prompts the birth of Jesus, and then falls on him completely when he is baptized thirty years later. As Jesus prays, preaches, heals, and feed, the Spirit spills out of him for the benefit of other people. Then the Spirit comes upon a frightened group of his friends and turns them into a bold and serving church.  

            In our text, the Spirit comes upon Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, and she is no longer the same person. She begins to speak while her husband the priest remains mute. Even if she were a woman of her times, instructed by the male-dominated culture to be quiet and stay out of sight, here she is, bubbling over with blessings, effusively honoring the future mother of Jesus. There is something new happening in the world, signals Luke: it’s time for the women to speak of God’s goodness. They are not to be swept away in the old world of Jewish tradition. Oh no, not when the Spirit of God comes upon them!

            What we have here is a story about the turning of the ages. The old Elizabeth – barren like Sarah, barren like Rebekah, barren like Rachel, barren like Hannah[1] – she is having a child because of the generosity of God. She stands for the women of every age who are disregarded and dismissed because they cannot produce for their men – and God provides what their men cannot provide for them.

            It’s like the ancient vision of the prophet Isaiah:

            Sing, O barren one, who did not bear;

burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labor!

            For the children of the desolate woman will be more numerous

than the children of her that is married.[2]

            Something is happening through Elizabeth – the barrenness of centuries of Jewish hopes is now being countered by the grace of God.

            And something is happening in Mary, the young unmarried woman. Her child comes as a complete gift, unrequested, unexpected, without the initiation of any man. The Spirit comes upon Mary, and that’s all it takes to have a child. That’s all it takes. And this child of hers will grow to honor women and men as equal children of God. He will push aside the cultural restrictions of his day to speak to women, to heal them, to welcome their support of his work. He counters the world’s disgraceful assessment of women with God’s abundant grace. So it is the women who first sing of his birth, and women who first share the announcement of his resurrection.

            How can this be? It’s because God gives God’s own self to the world. God breathes God’s Breath as a way of pushing open something new. Without the Holy Spirit – without God’s purpose or presence in our lives – we are left only to ourselves. All we have is our own words, our limited hopes, our restricted abilities. But when God comes into our midst, we find ourselves players in some larger plan.

            “Blessed is she who believes that what God speaks will happen.” Elizabeth the old sings this to Mary the young. With this burst of Spirit, the ages turn and something new is announced.

            This is the promise of Christmas, as we sing our carols, pray our prayers, and offer ourselves to the work of God. God has a mission to this world. It is announced by Elizabeth’s child on behalf of Mary’s son. God comes to say that every single one of us matters. If our lives are barren, God has the power to fill them. If our hopes have frozen, God comes to re-ignite them. If our work is hard and met with resistance, if faith is shaky and energy is depleted, God comes in the blessing of the Holy Spirit. This gift is not a birthright or a stockpiled asset. The Spirit comes and goes, as wild as the winter wind. But the Spirit does come – and that is God’s blessing – to Elizabeth, to Mary, and to us.

            Watch for this, O beloved people of God, for all of you are pregnant. You have the seed of God’s future planted deep within you. Watch and prepare for the Spirit to fill you, to move you, to lift you, to empower you, to increase in you. Prepare for a great and benevolent force beyond your own to equip you to love strangers, to forgive enemies, to create new possibilities for life where there were once only death and dead-ends.

            Trust the good news of God. And remember one thing more: belief is a muscle that needs exercise.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Genesis 11:30, 25:21, 29:31, 1 Samuel 1:2

[2] Isaiah 54:1

A Shout in the Dark

Zephaniah 3:14-20

Advent 3

December 16, 2012

William G. Carter

Rejoice, Daughter Zion! Shout, Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, Daughter Jerusalem.

The LORD has removed your judgment; he has turned away your enemy.

The LORD, the king of Israel, is in your midst; you will no longer fear evil.

On that day, it will be said to Jerusalem: Don’t fear, Zion. Don’t let your hands fall.

The LORD your God is in your midst— a warrior bringing victory.

He will create calm with his love; he will rejoice over you with singing.

I will remove from you those worried about the appointed feasts. They have been a burden for her, a reproach.

Watch what I am about to do to all your oppressors at that time.

I will deliver the lame; I will gather the outcast.

I will change their shame into praise and fame throughout the earth.

At that time, I will bring all of you back, at the time when I gather you.

I will give you fame and praise among all the neighboring peoples

when I restore your possessions and you can see them—says the LORD.

Today I want to talk about hope. Hope. Hope is a human word. It is in our DNA. It runs through our bloodstreams. Whoever we are, wherever we find ourselves, there is the possibility of hope. That’s what I want to talk about today.

Hope is an Advent word. The four Sundays before Christmas invite us to be full of hope. Advent slows down our speedy impulses when everybody is in a hurry. We wait for Christ to be born within us, to become more like him, to love as he loves, to live in union with God as he lives. The church knows this takes a while. We don’t become like Christ without effort and the passing of time. So we have the days of Advent to wait it out and work it out. And the promise of Advent is that, when Christ comes, we shall join in the Christmas carol that says, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.” We hope for Christ to come right here. We hope for him to come where he is needed most.

            But hope is a misunderstood word. Hope is often confused with “wish.” We have lived the age-old scenario: “Blow out the birthday candles, close your eyes, and make a wish.” The problem comes in closing the eyes. A wish always closes its eyes. A wish imagines something that cannot happen. But hope is different. Hope keeps its eyes wide-open, sees how things really are, imagines what things could be, and works for that.

            We heard some people “hope for peace.” Truth be told, they aren’t hoping for peace so much as they are wishing for peace. They are blowing out birthday candles and expecting magic. Because, you see, a wish is always a wish for magic. But if we hope for peace, it wires us differently. And that’s what I want to talk about, as a way of addressing our national crisis, as a way to get through our days and nights.

            Our guide for this Zephaniah, one of the Bible’s nearly forgotten writers. How many of you knew there was a book named Zephaniah? We don’t hear from Zephaniah very much because he wrote one of the grumpiest books in the Bible.

We call him a “minor prophet” and do not know much about him. According to the very first verse, which was added later, Zephaniah spoke up for God during a time of national housecleaning. Israel had a decent king for once, a king by the name of Josiah, who was leading a national “Back to the Bible” reform. The king’s Bible at the time was the book of Deuteronomy. By returning to Deuteronomy, the people were returning to God. There was a brief national emphasis on getting rid of the counterfeit gods – you know, the small “g” gods that everybody tends to worship.

It’s all too easy for anybody to fall into that kind of idolatry. The God of Israel is frequently very quiet, and The Creator of the Universe is sufficiently enormous to remain out of sight. And in that supposed vacuum, other pretenders fill the gap. Or we turn to small little things or small little people from whom we expect great things. Josiah rediscovered the biblical book of Deuteronomy, a book about keeping God first, a book about loving God first before everything else.

On the surface, the prophet Zephaniah did his preaching during that time of reform. The first verse of the book was added later to date his work at that time.

But apparently, a lot of people weren’t getting the memo. Because what Zephaniah actually says is that God is coming with fiery nostrils to snort and rage against the people. The very first thing God says is, “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth!” And who can blame the Holy One of Israel? God’s own people are worshiping their own pleasure, in the name of Baal, the pleasure god (1:4). They are weighing all their silver coins (1:11) and bowing down before the fake gods of money and affluence, and Zephaniah says, “Neither their silver nor gold will be able to save them” (1:18).

God says, “I have called them to live by justice, but they have ignored me” (3:2). The people live by the status quo as violence breaks out around them. They put up walls and think vainly that this will keep them safe. And to make matters worse, the so-called holy leaders take the Bible and use it as “a weapon to maim and kill souls” (3:4, The Message).

To sum up, it was a dark time in the national life. If there was any reform, it was not taking root. When you start reading the prophet Zephaniah, it is like, “Whoa! The Day of the Lord is right here. This murderous, indifferent people are going to be flushed down the sewer.” It looks like gloom, doom, destruction and despair are riding closer on the horses of the Apocalypse. God is sending judgment on the people – and in a way, it was largely self-inflicted.

And then, just at that point, just when the darkness is so heavy, we get the passage that we heard today. “Rejoice, Daughter Zion! Rejoice, my little girl Jerusalem! The Lord removes your judgment. The Strong King stands in the middle of all of you. You don’t have to fear evil anymore.”

Let me say something, then, about how the Bible talks, and specifically how the prophet Zephaniah speaks. Here is a prophet who brings the honest word of God. There is no tinsel on his description of how corrupt are the people, no glitter as we describes our broken lives. As God speaks through the Bible’s prophets, God never softens any words about how messed up the human family was, is, and always shall be. Because of this divine honesty, the prophets, as God’s press agents, often took the brunt of human response.

But just after God speaks, and the moment of recognition comes when the people say, “Yep, that’s what we are,” God will then often interrupt that dark moment by saying, “Rejoice, little girl. The Warrior God will bring calm with his love. God will rejoice over you with singing.” That’s called “the good news.” Hebrew scholars call this “the salvation announcement.” This is the shout of God’s light in the thickest human darkness. And it is intended to shape us differently, to remake us into different people.

You know, a lot of people could say, “Where was God on Friday, when shooter went into the Sandy Hook Elementary School?” The assumption is that God should show up like a comic book super hero, block all the bullets, defend all the innocent, and punch the crazy guy to the moon. Remember the distinction that I made between “hope” and “wish”? That would be a wish. You can shut your eyes and make that wish.

Perhaps other people ask other questions. Here is one that I have heard: “Where was God in the gun store, when overly dangerous weapons were sold?” Or here is another: “Where was God, when a young man was so tormented that the reptile part of his brain struck down little ones who had done nothing against him?”

Where was God? The answer is right there in the words of the prophet Zephaniah: “The Lord your God is in your midst. God will create calm with his love. God will rejoice over you with singing.”

So I want to talk about hope. On a day of national grief, what are you hoping for? Twenty children in Connecticut have been taken from us, six adults cut down, the shooter himself and his mother are gone – what do we hope for? I could turn you loose to talk among yourselves, but I’m not sure I could get you back. We are a divided people, especially when it comes to guns. All of us agree that children must be kept safe. We will do whatever we can to protect them. But we do not know how to do this.

One of the Bible’s words for hope is the Hebrew word gavah. The root of it means “to twist,” as in when the strands of a rope are twisted together. As someone has said, this is a word that seems to fit our brand of hoping well. “The possibility that that good thing happen and that bad thing will not happen, a hundred little strands of hope that we  twist together to make a cable of hope strong enough to pull ourselves along through our lives with.”[1]

So we take everything that we hope for our children and we twist it together. It can become strong enough that we can pull ourselves along and get through the dark.

There is no question that this world is a mess. Anybody have any doubts of that after the gunshots in Connecticut? I suppose we can obsess about the killer, flash his face repeatedly on the news, do an amateur psychological analysis, and become addicted to the sensationalism. But this can become a sick distraction from the fact that whole world is a mess. And this pushes us toward God. What we hope for is God – a good God, a just God, the only God who, in Zephaniah’s words, can “change shame into praise.”

I think of how Fred Rogers, the prophet for children, once put it. He said, “At the heart of the universe is a loving heart that continues to beat and that wants the best for every person. Anything that we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings, that is our job.”

So then, hope is more than a vacant wish. Hope is something we invest in. Hope is what we give ourselves to. And when a senseless tragedy happens, we open our eyes to see – and then we decide if it is going to define who we are. The prophet Zephaniah is well aware of what deep trouble the human race repeatedly creates for itself. But as the prophet listens to God, he hears God say, “Don’t be afraid.” Our world may be in a mess – but people who listen to God refuse to live by fear. No, there is another way forward.

Saint Augustine, the early bishop of the church, knew this. In one of his most memorable quotes, he said, “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.”[2]

Hope has to do with what could be. It has to do with what we will do to invest ourselves in changing what needs to be changed. One of the dreamers who taught us a great deal about hope was the poet Langston Hughes. Here are some words that he passed along:

I dream a world where man no other man will scorn,

Where love will bless the earth and peace its path adorn.

I dream a world where all will know sweet freedom’s way

Where greed no longer saps the soul nor avarice blights the day.

A world I dream where black and white, whatever race you be,

Will share the bounties of the earth and every [one] is free.

Where wretchedness will hang its head

And Joy, like a pearl, attends the needs of all humankind   [“all mankind”]

Of such a world, I dream, my world.

You, there is something curious about that poem. It is never says who is speaking. I think it is God. For God dreams that “love will bless the earth and peace its path adorn.” This is God’s dream for God’s own world.

And when we hear God’s dream - when we work for it - that is the very definition of hope.

© William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark (New York: Seabury Press, 1969) 123.

[2] As quoted in Spirituality and Liberation: Overcoming the Great Fallacy (1988) by Robert McAfee Brown, p. 136.

Preparing the Way

Luke 3:1-9

Advent 2

December 9, 2012

William G. Carter

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

            Advent signals more than the coming of Jesus Christ. Advent is the coming of John the Baptist. This strange prophet calls out from the desert. He is a throw-back to the Old Testament, one more demanding desert preacher. God gives him a Word to speak that differs from the emperor, governor, and rulers of the day. John works the region on both sides of the river, out beyond the cities and the towns. He speaks a Holy Word when the official religious leaders apparently had little to say.

            All the Gospels say the people were ready for him. Of course, they were ready. When John the Baptist opened his mouth, God came out. God was on his lips. God was in his voice. And what people want more than anything else is to be in the presence of God.

            I remember when my parents were invited by some neighbors to go and hear a traveling preacher. My sister and I were taken along, as I recall. We squeezed into the neighbors’ car, all six of us, and went over the hills to the country church that our neighbors attended. I don’t know where it was. I was little. From what I can piece together from that night, it must have been a revival. The old country folk in that church needed to be revived.

And when the preacher came out in a black suit and a glistening brow, he revived as many of those folk as he could. He worked pretty hard at it. I can’t remember what he said, but I remember he was loud. He blew our hair straight back. He raised the temperature in the room. I was just a child, but I remember it was loud and scary – and I didn’t want to leave.

            Luke says there were crowds. Large numbers of people! They came to be washed by John. He didn’t care who they were. He didn’t waste any time reading their resumes. John yelled at whoever showed up. ‘Who do you think you are, to show your face or tout your credentials?” he screamed. “Do you think God is going to give you a free pass to glory? Oh no, it’s not free. It’s going to cost you everything!”

And with that, the people came. They wanted to be in the presence of somebody who took God seriously. They wanted somebody who could cut through the nonsense and talk about something real. They came out to experience John the Baptist because it was just like experiencing God.

            Now, I hesitate to say much about this. We are a long way from John. We sit on cushioned seats in a temperature-controlled room. Our music is well rehearsed. Everybody looks so respectable. This is such a contrast from John’s sanctuary! In the desert there are no seats and certainly no thermostats. There was no music other than the scream of animals and the cry of human hearts. John spoke in such a situation of extremity. We can speak of him only from a distance. We are a long way from his desert.

            But maybe not. Advent invites us to close the gap, to reflect on the same human hunger to experience God. When I consider John the Baptist and his habitat, I remember a few lines from poet T.S. Eliot. He knew there are many sorts of deserts in life, and some of them have nothing to do with sandy wastes and scorching sun. The poet says,

            You neglect and belittle the desert.

            The desert is not remote in southern tropics

            The desert is not only around the corner,

            The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you,

            The desert is in the heart of your brother.[1]

           

            The barrenness is just that close. The howling wind, the wild exposure, the rawness of the elements – it is all right here, so close to so many of us. Every human heart knows the desert.

            A few years ago, I felt the tug to spend a little desert time. A plane ticket took me to Albuquerque, a bus took me to Santa Fe, and a borrowed car took me to a red rock canyon. There is a monastery in the canyon, thirteen miles from nowhere. I wanted to know: what does it mean to go to the desert? To confront the barren wasteland that is all too familiar? I asked the brothers in the monastery; they smiled and kept their vow of silence. They waited a week before any of them said a word. They watched to see if I was serious – or if I was merely a tourist passing through.

            On my final day, they told me what they gave up to go to the desert. One of them had been an engineer. He gave up a job researching solar energy in a laboratory. Another left behind a career as the development director of a major arts organization. A third didn’t really have a job, he said, just drifted from one employment to another, and the impulse to join the desert monastery seemed to set him free from years of fumbling from one meaningless job to another. The engineer spoke up and said, “I was very good at my job, but the stress was killing me.” The development officer said, “I raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for my organization, but it left me empty and hollow.”

            All of them gave up lives that had become numb, empty, and suffocating. Each one moved away from a life that paying very well but killing them in the process. They walked away – to seek life together in the desert. They pray, they share the chores, and they contribute their skills for the life of their small community.

                       

            That’s what came to mind as I reflected on the words of John the Baptist, “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” It is a real picture from first century agriculture. A vineyard owner would cull the grapevines that were not producing fruit by killing them. On the day when vines were to be dressed, the farmer would visit the field with a sharp axe. He would hack up the vine that produced nothing, that took up space and soil. It was smothering the other vines, taking away valuable resources, so it needed to go.

And when I recount the story of those three monks, they were confessing there was some part of their lives that was unproductive. It didn’t amount to anything. It was dragging them down. It needed to go. And that gives me some insight into a very practical way for us to prepare the way of God to come to us.

            For Advent, I suggest that we spend a little time doing an inventory of our souls. Is there a part of our lives that is dead and has no use? Maybe it’s an ability that once we had, but we have let it wither, and all that remains is a faint trace. Or we encounter the young person who does it far better than we ever could; it may be time to let it go.

            Or perhaps it is a memory that lingers with us. Say, for instance, a picture is fixed in our heads: “This is how Christmas is supposed to look. This is who should be there. This is how we are going to decorate. This is how we are going to dress. This is what we are going to do.” But if we are truthful, Christmas has not been like that for a number of years. We are hanging onto a memory that does not work anymore; it may be time to let it go.

            Or it might be an opinion that we hold of ourselves. We look into the mirror to say, “This is who I am, this is what I am about.” But if we are completely honest, that is not who we are or what we are about. And it hasn’t been, for a while. A small distortion has grown to be a delusion, and our reinforced messages are only holding us hostage. It may be time to let this go.  

            Or maybe, just maybe, there is some voice, a tempting voice, that repeats that we are now worthy of the love of God or the love of anybody else. The desert is a place of testing, of sorting through the voices that bombard us. Sometimes we may hear the parent or the teacher or the critic denouncing us, restricting us, reducing us, declaring, “You are nothing. Nobody loves you. You are a cosmic mistake.” And if you give into that voice long enough, you will start to believe it. The voice of self-negation needs to be cut off. We have to let it go.

            If Advent calls us to prepare a way for God to come, it calls us to the honesty of the desert. Is there some deadness in our branches, some withering piece of our spirit that we simply need to let go?

            Maybe it’s time to let go of the manufactured holiday. You know, the heavy burden of having to do all the shopping, go to all the parties, put up all the lights, bake up all the goodies, hang all the ornaments, send all the cards, get in touch with all the friends, and maintain all the traditions. Is there some part of this that doesn’t give us any joy anymore? The old Christmas train carries a lot of freight, doesn’t it? And if some part of this is smothering us, John the Baptist says, “Let me get my axe and bring it to that old dead vine.”

            Or maybe it’s time to let go of the incessant spending. I’m the first one to get caught up in it. On Friday afternoon, I found myself with the first free hours of my week, so I swung into the parking lot of the Junk Emporium. That’s the name of the store: the Junk Emporium. It has aisles and aisles of Christmas stuff. I piled my shopping cart full of stuff that I didn’t want and do not need but planned to give to other people. I picked up gifts for some friends, a goofy gift for my dad, an even more ridiculous gift for my mother, and some very special gifts for my household that do not appear on their wish lists.

I labored to push my laden shopping cart out the door. It was so full that it was hard to push, and a man had to help me get the cart over the door frame. Then I realized who he was: he was the bell ringer from the Salvation Army that I had ignored on my way into the Junk Emporium. He, in turn, gazed into my loaded shopping cart, and looked up with disappointed eyes, as if to silently say, “Do you really need all this stuff? I’m ringing the bell for hungry people here. Do you really need all this stuff?”

Well, I pushed by him without saying a word, loaded up my sleigh, and flew home. And as I am carrying the bags into my house, I looked at what I bought, and asked, “Do I really need all this stuff?”

            That’s a good question for the desert. Having a shopping cart full of unnecessary stuff is not the same thing as being a tree with good fruit. Not at all.

            John the Baptist runs the checkpoint on the road to God. He will not let any casual travelers pass. In fact, he directs us to the weighing station to check if we are carrying any unnecessary burdens that we need to drop. God sends John to make us pare down, to push us to focus, to claim the life that really is life. If there is something that holds us back from experiencing the simple joy of God, we have to let it go.

            I’m thinking of my friend Carlos. He lives in the desert of Point Pleasant, New Jersey, a town damaged greatly by the hurricane. The Presbyterian Church that he serves as pastor will be housing up to thirty-six volunteers a day for the next four years. The volunteers will be helping that community to rebuild its life.

            Carlos is well read. He suggests that Henry David Thoreau is a helpful guide for understanding John the Baptist and the call of the desert. Thoreau wrote a book called Walden, to reflect on some time he spent living in the Massachusetts desert. Here’s what Thoreau says of his journey:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.[2]

Don’t be afraid of the desert. That is where God meets us.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] T.S. Eliot, “Choruses from ‘The Rock,’” The Complete Poems and Plays (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1952), p. 98.

[2] Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Houghton Mifflin, 1854), p. 257.

At the End of the World

Luke 21:24-35

Advent 1

December 2, 2012

William G. Carter

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” 

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Where do you want to be at the end of the world? There is a small town on the western edge of France, near the Pyrenees Mountains. When the end of the world comes, some people are saying you have to be there.

It is the village of Bugarach, a scenic hamlet of 176 residents in the shadow of a large mountain. Villagers joke, “It’s not exactly the end of the world, but you can see it from here.” The conspiracy theorists are much more serious. They believe there are extraterrestrials sleeping in caves deep inside the mountain.

And on December 21 of this year, when the world is supposed to be destroyed according to the ancient Mayan calendar, the extraterrestrials are supposed to wake up, climb into the spaceships that they have stashed in their caves, and rescue the people of Bugarash by taking them to another planet.

I don’t make this stuff up. It comes from a two-year-old article in the New York Times.[1] CNN calls it “the Doomsday Destination.” And I suspect as we get closer to December 21, there may be more waves of anxiety breaking on shore.

You know about December 21, right? The ancient Mayan people had a calendar that stretched into the future, and December 21, 2012 was the last date on their calendar. They were an ingenious and capable people, so some true believers think the Mayans knew the world would run out on December 21. Scientists point out that the Mayan calendar made no adjustments for leap years, so it’s probably a good bit off. Skeptics remind us that, as fortune-telling goes, the Mayans did not predict the demise of their own civilization around the year 1100 AD. But still, the X-Files conspiracy hunters are pretty much convinced: the end of the world is coming.

My wife asked, “Should I bother to wrap your Christmas presents?” I said, “Nah, just give them to me now.” Then I thought better of it and added, “You had better wrap them after all. If the end comes, I won’t have a lot of time to enjoy them. And if doesn’t come, I will enjoy the surprise.” (I think I’m getting sock and underwear.)

Jesus speaks of the end of the world in our Gospel text. That is how the season of Advent always begins: with an end of the world Bible passage. “There will be signs in sun, moon, and stars. The powers of heaven will be shaken,” he says. “On the earth, people will be terrified by the roaring of the sea and the waves.”

If you believe, as I do, that terrifying storms can be caused by global warming, this is indeed a scary thing. And if you are somebody who believes the weather patterns are part of some big natural cycle, you still have to concede that we have been putting a lot of junk in the sea, the soil, and the atmosphere for a long time. Our recklessness and overpopulation puts great stress on the planet. Some people think the end of the world will come from an ecological meltdown.

I had lunch with an economist the other day. He thinks the world is heading for a financial meltdown. Forget whatever financial cliff you have been hearing about. He says the amount of global indebtedness is going to drag human civilization down the drain. His prediction is that sometime in the next two years, the American economy is going to fall apart. I was trying to sip some corn chowder while he told me this; I lost my appetite.

Others remind us of what none of us want to remember: that technology has led us to develop weapons that could wipe out billions of people in a few mushroom clouds. That was the quiet fear of my childhood, maybe yours. We sat in the hallway of Washington Gladden Elementary School to duck and cover our heads, just in case the wrong person pushed the wrong button somewhere. The fear kept me awake sometimes. Eleven years ago, that same fear sent our country into two wars. And even though the fear turned out to be based on untruths, we haven’t been able to get out of the war business. 

Where are you going to be when the world comes to an end?

Do you know what Jesus says? You are going to be standing on the ground, lifting up your eyes, and seeing the Son of Man coming with power and great glory. He is teaching that the end of the world is a time of hope. The end of the world is an event for God to make everything right about the world as we know it. The end of the world is a moment of redemption; that’s a grand Biblical word that means “God is going to buy everything back,” that God will pay off the ransom to get his people back. That’s redemption.

What strikes me is that this is such a different view of the same old fear-mongering that we get in every generation. Every generation has earthquakes, massive storms, and wars. According to our text, Jesus is not the least bit surprised at this. The world is a perpetual mess. That is why God sent Jesus into the world, to do something about the mess. That is why Jesus calls us to join him to keep doing something about the mess. And the hope we are given by Christ is that a final day will come when God will say, “enough is enough,” and God will come to buy back all of his people. The word is “Redemption.”

In the ancient world, redemption was paying off a slave owner so the slave could go free. Redemption was cancelling an unwieldy debt so a family was released from it. Watch for this, says Jesus. Don’t get dragged down by the doom and gloom. Turn a deaf ear to the naysayers and the nattering nabobs of negativity. This world belongs to God, the only true God, the God of love and justice. It does not belong to those who traffic in fear or cultivate destruction. It belongs to God. We have to keep that in perspective.

Jean-Pierre DeLord knows that. He is the mayor of the little town of Bugarach. He has been re-elected mayor for thirty-nine years. As he watches all the wide-eyed crazies descend upon his little village and start their final countdown to Apocalypse, he says, “This is the 183rd end-of-the-world prophecy since antiquity.” He sighs and says they will get through this one too.

The best way to be on guard is to keep loving all the people that Jesus loves. To keep teaching the children that perfect love drives out all fear. To keep protecting those who are frightened for they are God’s beloved ones. To feed the hungry, to rebuild the disrupted, to offer a hand-up to those who have been pushed down. We don’t have to live by terror or fear. Oh no.

When the end of the world comes, I want to be right here – at the communion table – offering the bread of Christ’s life and the cup of Christ’s mercy.

© William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/world/europe/31bugarach.html

The Invitation to Generous Poverty

Mark 12:38-44

November 11, 2012

William G. Carter

As Jesus taught, he said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’

            This weekend marks the 27^th anniversary of my first major failure as a minister. I preached a sermon on this Bible passage and it didn’t go well.

            It was my first-ever stewardship sermon and I did the best I could. Four weeks after my ordination, I pointed to the widow who gave her last two copper coins to the Jerusalem temple. I praised her sacrificial contribution and declared it was a generous example. I quoted a famous preacher who once declared, “The Lord can do a lot with a little when he has it all.”

            The church members sat with their arms crossed. Nothing that I said seemed to register any emotion. The offering plates were as thinly covered as usual. It was completely flat experience. When I walked into coffee hour a few minutes later, the people looked up, smiled benignly, and went quickly back to their conversations.

            I turned around and standing in front of me with the church treasurer. He was a retired Air Force colonel and he was not happy. He proceeded to unload in me in front of the coffee hour crowd. “That was the worst excuse for a stewardship sermon that I have ever heard,” he said in a voice far too loud. “What do you think you were trying to do?”

People began to shuffle away awkwardly. I stammered out, “I was talking about the generous widow as a good example for Christian giving,” I said. He bellowed back, “I thought that’s what you were trying to do. What a stupid sermon!”

I stood shell-shocked. I didn’t know what to say. So he filled in the gap. “What you should have done is lay on some guilt, and make these people feel guilty for the pitifully small contributions that they make to this church’s budget. We will never make it on two pennies per person.” Then he spun around and stomped away. That was 27 years ago today. My first ever stewardship sermon.

            I realize that whenever scripture gets read, people often hear whatever they are prepared to hear. That guy wanted his pastor to shake down the congregation by laying a big guilt trip. As he heard the story, the widow wasn’t giving enough. Two small copper coins, equivalent to one of our pennies. He wanted me to yell at them, and when I didn’t do so, he yelled at me.

            And the fact of the matter is, Jesus is watching the whole line of donors as they make their offering to the Temple. The rich people put in large sums (you see, back then, they didn’t have offering envelopes!). Even so, they were contributing their leftovers, said Jesus. But the widow put in everything that she had. Everything! She had no public assistance, no welfare or survivor’s pension, no official means for making an income – and she put in her last two cents. That is sacrificial giving. Jesus points her out, and she has been immortalized in countless stewardship sermons over the centuries. That’s how most of us have heard the story.

            But did you hear what comes immediately before that brief vignette? Jesus is hammering away at the religious leaders of his time. He’s going after the scribes of the Temple. They preen around like they are important. They call attention to how they look and where they sit. When they pray, he says, they go on far too long – and God gets bored by their heaped up words. And what else do they do? “They devour the homes of widows.”

            Now, that puts a new frame around the picture. Step back a few paces, and get a bigger view. Jesus denounces the scribes for pillaging the livelihoods of widows, demanding the money of those women who lost their husbands and had no other legal means of support. He criticizes the whole religious establishment. And then he points out this one woman, a widow, who gives generously to the very institution that plunders her life.

            It’s disturbing. Why does that temple exist? To maintain the relationship between God and God’s people. How does the temple function? By teaching the scriptures and following what they teach. And what do the scriptures say? “Doom to you who legislate evil, who make laws that make misery for the poor, that rob my destitute people of dignity, exploit defenseless widows, and take advantage of homeless children!”[1] Isaiah, chapter 10. “Do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.” Zechariah, chapter 7. [2]

            Over and over in the Jewish scriptures, the word “widow” is more than a description of a woman who lost her husband. It is a code word for those who have no voice in society, no means of income, no protection or care. Take care of them, God says. Do not plunder them. That’s the very thing Jesus warns about the religious scribes of his day. And then he points to one of the very people who is being drained dry.

            Institutions can lose their souls. An institution gets bigger. More levels of management are inserted. It will do whatever it can to maintain its authority, and sometimes it merely perpetuates its shell. In the process, the heart decays. All of us have stories about this, whether it’s a business, a school, or a government agency. Procedures become fixed. The rules take over. The bottom line becomes more important than people.

            I can’t speak about how this looks in the business world. But I know how it looks in the religious world. When I worked with alumni from my Presbyterian seminary, we regularly heard how students are beneath the bottom rung of the ladder. The school administration refused to hire a full-time counselor at the same time that the trustees were cheering on the endowment to climb over a billion dollars.

            Or just this week: my Presbyterian minister health insurance company sent out a memo. Rates for clergy health care are going up in January 2014. Sure, that happens everywhere. But here’s the thing: if the minister has kids young enough to be dependents, the company wants the church to kick in even more. This will push small churches to hire an old minister who has no kids. And here’s the thing: that memo was sent out from a corporate business meeting being held at a resort on Hilton Head Island.

            Or I remember an Op-Ed column in the Washington Post years ago. Somebody wrote that the average age of Roman Catholic nuns is over sixty-six, and most nuns have no pensions. As the writer said, “Unlike the male hierarchy who controlled the collection plate, the sisters put neither their trust in money or their money in trust. . . they worked for less than the widow’s mite. The church never offered to care for its own nuns.” The vow of poverty has become a vow of destitution with few new takers.” (Colman McCarthy)

            Peter Drucker, the management guru, did a study of non-profit institutions. He warned that every human organization can decay from within, unless it keeps revisiting its mission statement. The critical questions are these: Why are you here? Why do you exist? What is your real business?

            Maybe the best answer to such questions came from Jacob Marley to Ebenezer Scrooge: “Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.”[3]

            My friend Carlos Wilton is pastor of the Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. He’s the one who had the Weather Channel guy broadcasting live two weeks ago today. As many as a quarter of the five hundred Point Pleasant church members have lost their homes or left the area since Hurricane Sandy. Today was scheduled to be that church’s Stewardship Sunday, when they were to dedicate their financial pledges to God and God’s church. It's hard to even imagine doing that, he said.

            When we talked earlier this week, Carl said, “For the last two weeks, we have been remembering about why we have a church. We exist to pray together. We exist to worship God together. We exist to care about human needs.” Today he tells people to come as they are, ragged or intact, and to come forward after worship if anybody needs individual prayers of healing. Tomorrow night and Friday night, his people will prepare a free community meal for anybody who is hungry or needs a friend.

            “There is a circle of service,” he says in his sermon today. “There are times in life when we are able to serve, and other times when – as uncomfortable as that may feel – there is nothing else to do but graciously allow others to serve us.” Hurricanes do not discriminate. Neither should our hearts.

            Now, there’s a church with its soul intact.

            “Do you see her?” asks Jesus. “Do you see that woman over there?” She was a widow, which meant she was poor. She didn’t have hardly anything, but she gave freely of herself. We can speculate about her motives. Did she give out of obligation? Perhaps. Was giving her habit? Certainly. Was giving a spiritual practice? Probably so. She did not give her money because the institutional temple was corrupt, selfish, or heartless. She certainly did not give money out of guilt, or because the retired military colonel serving as the institutional treasurer cajoled her into doing so.

            No. She gave because she believed God was in the middle of the whole thing. She gave because God is bigger than the institutions that claim to do God’s work. She gave because she wanted to be part of God’s great salvage operation to the world.

            I believe she gave because she knew the bedrock purposes of any temple are still essential: to lead people in praising God, to gather around the sacred texts, and to listen when the scriptures say, “The Lord upholds the homeless child and the widow, but the way of the wicked God brings to ruin.” (Psalm 146:9)

            “Look at her,” says Jesus. “Look at her!” She believes God is bigger than the church. She believes God wants to work through the church. That’s why she gives her all. That’s why Jesus gives everything, too.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Isaiah 7:1-4

[2] Zechariah 7:10

[3] Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, stave 1.