Preparing for Christmas: Close, Closer, Closest! Advent 4C

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Preparing for Christmas:  Close, Closer, Closest!

Dec 23, 2018        Advent 4-C

The newscasters had a name for yesterday - they called is Last Minute Saturday.  (Like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday and so on.)  They showed scenes of crowded malls and stores, people pushing and loaded down with bags.  In Jimmy Fallon’s monologue Friday night on the Tonight Show, he remarked that unless you got some sort of deal, its too late to order online now. And he had the Toys R Us stores, who closed during the last year, say, “I bet you miss us now!” 

            We’ve been talking of preparing for Christmas in these Advent Sundays -  making comparisons to how we prepare outwardly for company and deep clean the house, how we decorate, and how we look forward to time together with other folks.  We’ve been comparing this to our inner preparations for the new life of Christ in our lives - examining and purifying ourselves, letting go of the old so there’s room for the new.  As this is the 4^th Sunday of Advent, it’s the closest to Christmas Eve, which this year is actually tomorrow, so at home, we’re probably about as ready as we can be. 

We probably have our turkeys or hams or barbecue, our ingredients for stuffing or sweet potatoes or green beans or whatever our sides will be.  We’ve probably cleaned, made up the company beds and put the company towels out.  Maybe there’s some presents already under the tree. I’m making my pumpkin pie today – I love my pumpkin pie more than anyone else’s – yes, it’s the Libby’s recipe, but with a couple personal tweaks.  I like it with so much whipped cream that I can barely see the pie underneath.  My sister bought whipped cream in preparation, but I bought one, too - you can’t have too much whipped cream. 

            So its Last Minute time, when things come together and we kinda panic but are excited, too.  Those are the outer preparations for how Christmas is celebrated nowadays.  Its time for the traditions to begin – welcoming folks who’ve traveled, sharing food, preparing to share meals.  You know, as pastors, we rarely travel for Christmas, but we make our own customs.  The kid’s dad had 3 services on Christmas Eve and I sometimes had one elsewhere.  So I usually cooked a Stauffer’s lasagna as a quick meal between the 4:30 children’s’ service and the 7pm service. At least it was red; and as I usually had the excited kids by myself, it was easy.  I’ve kept that tradition - in fact, I bought one for tomorrow.  We all have our nativity scenes up – I had a crocheted one so the kids could touch it and carry the pieces if they wanted to. 

            Our modern Christmases are kind of a mix of a faith professions and a mid-winter festival.  Sometimes I can go on a rant about the materialism of modern Christmases, although I then think that Jesus certainly wouldn’t object to communal meals, healed relationships, sharing and rejoicing  In some way, in the right spirit, Christmas might show a bit of the celebration of heaven.  At least our holiday still has the name Christ in it, although Santa has become the more looked-for figure - and maybe THE figure in non-churched families.  There are still carols about the holy night and Jesus’ birth, which mix in on our playlists or radios with other songs like Santa Baby and Winter Wonderland.   Lots of families still come to worship on Christmas Eve, even if they’re not involved the rest of the year.  Whenever Jesus’ actual birth was, our Christian ancestors chose to set the celebration at the time of year of returning light, and to put a Christian overlay on the celebrations of the solstice that most cultures already had.  And our celebration of Christ’s birth still carries that mix.

So as our last Advent preparation for the spiritual side of Christmas, let’s take one more look at the meaning of this event we’re celebrating.  You know, God began preparing for Christmas long before we did - all during Advent, we read from the Jewish prophets – Isaiah, Zechariah, Micah, Malachi, and the story of how the refugee Ruth came into Jesus’ ancestry.  There are all kinds of words in the prophets that, looking back, we can connect with the coming of the Christ.  In their time, of course, it was looking forward, a hope, a promise; the idea of the God’s Anointed One, God’s Messiah, kept folks going in terrible times. God’s preparation started way back in the choosing of a special nation to carry that hope, and be a nation of priests in the sense that they carried the truth of God to the world; back with Abraham and Sarah,  Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, and those stories kept and treasured by our earliest faith ancestors. 

God’s last preparations included the parents of John the Baptizer, then Mary and Joseph to parent Baby Jesus.  It doesn’t seem like God chose an opportune period, with the Jewish people being under Roman rule at that time.  And Mary and Joseph were your everyday working poor people - blue collar we’d call them today, without the privileges or entitlements of the rich.  There was risk to Jesus from the time he was conceived.  Risk of being outcast, not of the ruling people, risk from soldiers, disease, accident – as well as the king’s displeasure.  But that’s what God prepared and chose, and brought to fruition.  

When we read Mary’s song of praise and victory, we remember that this birth stands for more than just a cute baby.  The first line in her song is My soul magnifies the Lord – we call it Mary’s Magnificat, from the Latin. She goes on to claim the promises her people held onto for years, and talks of the turning upside down of things by the Messiah, in throwing down the powerful from their thrones, and the poor being fed while the rich are sent away empty.  In our faith, this birth is the beginning of THE major work on behalf of humanity that God does.  

Last Sunday I went to hear a friend of mine sing in a performance of Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, accompanied by a harpist, as designed.  It was great! My High School choir learned this piece, so I could almost sing along, in words that moved me even at 18.  I especially love the piece called This Little Babe.  It captures the same spirit as the Magnificat in seeing this birth as God mounting a major campaign against the forces of evil, a cosmic fighting for the salvation of humankind’s souls.  Jesus’ birth is nothing less than the coming of the Divine into our sphere, in order to help us hear the good news of how things are supposed to be, and give us forgiveness and hope to live into that vision.  

So this carol looks at the baby’s birth as a battle scenario, and uses the language of human battle to describe the babe’s situation.  God’s battles sure don’t look like ours….. 

This little babe so few days old, has come to rifle Satan’s fold,

All hell doth at his presence quake, though he on earth for cold do shake. 

For in this weak, unarmed wise, the gates of hell he will surprise.  

It looks like any other birth, but this birth is the opening salvo in the way God is encountering evil!  This is a cosmic event of eternal significance.  And all Hell recognizes what Jesus is, and begins to rally against him in fear.  God has chosen the surprising way of love to overcome evil. 

I love the contrasts and comparisons in this next section– God’s ways look powerless in terms of the world, yet they are God’s master plan and strongest suit – love, incarnation, presence, being true humans.

With tears he fights and wins the field, his naked breast stands for a shield. 

His battering shots are babish cries, his arrows, looks of weeping eyes.

His martial ensigns Cold and Need, and feeble flesh, his warrior steed.

His camp is pitched in a stall. His bulwark but a broken wall.

The crib his trench, haystacks his stakes; of shepherds he his muster makes. 

And thus, as sure his foe to wound, the angels’ trumps alarum sound.

God doesn’t come in a tank or Humvee, but human flesh, dependent and needy.  No fort, no battle command station – just a crib – and a crib in poor housing…..no trained Green berets or Seals or Marines or Combat vets – God just has shepherds.  No noisy horns or roar of jets or sound of bombs falling, God has angels singing.

God fights with the power of new life and love. Not a great show of boots on the ground to mow down enemies; not huge armaments to wipe out cities of the enemy; not missiles and rockets and mortars to batter the enemies’ troops and break their spirits - - no, just the deep, deep love it took to set aside the glory of God’s being and be born in human flesh, all for our sake.  Hate does not drive out hate, Martin Luther King Jr reminded us – love drives out hate. 

The next carol, In Freezing Winter Night, continues the theme of comparing the poor family and its serviceable things, with the possessions of a king that this baby surely is:

This stable is a Prince’s court; this crib his chair of state;

The beasts are parcel of his pomp, the wooden dish his plate.

The persons in that poor attire his royal liveries wear;

The Prince himself is come from Heav’n – this pomp is prized there.

We’re wrong if the only Baby Jesus we know and honor is merely a cute and cuddly newborn – although I’m sure he was a cute and cuddly newborn, like all newborns.  Yet Jesus was also God’s very self; an Advent that was planned and anticipated for centuries!  Talk about preparing for Christmas! And not a Christmas of our kind, but a birth that was the beginning of a whole plan for the kingdom of God, the kindom of God, the realm of God.  In fact, this birth is also a battle, yes - a battle for humanity and its soul.  A battle against the evil, the nothingness, that would kill us, drain us, pull us into despair, pull our eyes from God, and from the realm of spiritual life – a life lived with God in generosity, kindness, peace, thanksgiving, gratitude, hope and love.  

So its right that in our preparations for Christmas, we keep this scenario in mind.  We remember how this little baby grows into Rabbi Jesus, a prophet who teaches with authority and calls people back to true worship, a threat that is so severe to the evil of the world that he is killed.  Yet such is the power of God’ love that Jesus is raised again in a new life, which is now offered to each of us. 

So next to that sweet baby Jesus, keep a reminder of what God did, what battle God engaged, how all evil was taken on in this birth & life.  And join the shepherds in wonder and the angels in crying Alleluia.  AMEN.

Preparing for Christmas: Close, Closer..... Advent 3C

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Preparing for Christmas - Close, Closer….

12/16/18        Advent 3-C           Luke 3: 7-18

            I used to groan when it got closer to special company coming (Advent..get it?), because my mom always went into a flurry of cleaning.  Not just the normal, Saturday cleaning, but a dust the windowsills and move the couch to vacuum kind of cleaning.  An on your knees in the kitchen so you got all the corners well kind of cleaning.  An take the mop and dust where the ceiling and wall come together, and over all the doors kind of cleaning.  Missy and I used to say, “Why all this cleaning before they come? Its only going to be a mess again after the party anyway!”

            For all my complaining, I couldn’t escape mom’s training, so I did the same thing to my kids, and they used the same line back at me.  I was especially ardent when it was my mom who was coming for a visit, because I knew she’d notice! Not only for company, but I have to leave the house clean  before I travel, too, because I know I’ll be all worn out when I get back, and at least I won’t have to clean the house.

            Do people still do Spring cleaning?  Its good to do a deep cleaning once in a while - when we do move the couch, its amazing what has gathered under there.  I find all my cat’s little  mousies; a cat I used to have liked shiny things, so often I’d find an earring I thought was lost, or a pen.  When I would take the couch cushions off to pump them and shake them, I’d find so much grime in the back of the couch!  All the cheetos and chips and peanuts the kids had eaten on the couch left pieces dripped down in the crevices. I also found lots of change that fell out of pockets - I always considered that part of my pay, so I kept it. 

            The kids’ rooms were the worst.  At a young age, my daughter made what she called ‘experiments’ where she combined toothpaste, perfume, liquid soap - whatever she could find, and let her creations dry on pieces of aluminum wrap…..at least they were on aluminum wrap!  I would find them under her bed…  I would find the one missing sock from various pairs, or underwear, or toys under the boys’ beds.  On a regular basis, then, all the toys got put back in the toy chest, the books on the bookshelves, any mugs or glasses got back to the kitchen, dirty socks got washed, and the house looked good.  It didn’t last, but it looked good for a couple days. 

            Cleaning out is important, because daily living scatters a lot of mess all around.  A new word I learned - detritus - stuff left around.  Cooking in the kitchen leaves spatters as well as dirty dishes.  Even pouring coffee leaves little spills.  Although I work at using leftovers, every once in a while I need to dig in the fridge and find the stuff that’s starting to mold.  Pens and pencils get left around where we wrote checks or signed report cards. That item we meant to carry back to our room sits on the steps waiting.  Living is messy. 

            Here’s my segue to the texts about John the Baptizer and the spiritual life.  John’ s message was to say, “Hey folks, get your life right with God, clean up your act, quit dilly-dallying about your faith life, quit depending on your parent’s faith & your great heritage.  God is sending the Messiah, and you better get ready.”  And he added an “or else” - the ax is ready to chop down the unproductive trees, friends, so bear some good fruit.  Its pruning time!  God is sifting the wheat, and only the good stuff is going to be kept.

John was preaching to the crowds that came out in the desert to hear him and see him, including the religious folks, and he didn’t spare anybody’s feelings - he called them a “brood of vipers,” some harsh words, and called them to turn around their ways.  That’s what ‘repent’ means - to do a 180, turn around, get going in the other direction towards God.  John is cleaning house with a new broom, getting the corners and the ceilings and under the couches.  Cleaning the house of God, preparing for the Advent of God’s new acts. 

Here 2000 years later, Christian history has seen some reform times and some renewal times.  Just like our houses, religious life is also messy, and over time stuff accumulates if its not cleaned out.  We get lazy about our practices of faith, we relax our vigilance over our morals, we get debating on non-essential points, and the real work and message of the church gets ignored.  I’ve wondered if this is maybe what’s happened to the church at large - we obviously have failed to pass along our faith to much of the next generation; we have lost the respect of people in general; we have moved over to the edge of unimportance to a lot of humanity.  Not totally, and not to everybody.  Whatever it is that has clouded people’s awe of God, perhaps the attraction and growth of a consumerist mentality, the worship of possessions, the race to compete over money, a philosophy of each person for themselves that Ayn Rand popularized in her novels, a clinging to blind belief that is unable to see the value of science and just rejects it - whatever it is that has caused Christian faith to seem irrelevant, we as a church have not been up to the challenge.  No longer can people look at us Christians and say, “See how they love one another!”   Christianity started with a criticism of mainstream religion, and a prophetic criticism of the values of the Roman Empire. When Christianity gets in bed with the Empire, it loses its voice, and it loses its way.  I wonder if that’s part of why our churches are closing at an increasing rate.  In the relay race of faith, as Paul talks of it in a sports metaphor, perhaps we are fumbling the baton.

On the drive down to Georgetown Y, there’s a house that has the sign ‘Pray for our Nation.’  I talk to that sign, and tell it that I, too, pray for our nation, although I probably don’t pray it for the way that sign means…. Although they and I probably desire that the values and faith of Christianity again be important in our country, I’m pretty sure we have a different picture of what that would look like.  I don’t think that the rigid and hierarchical, fundamentalist faith is the path, especially imposing it at the behest of some charismatic leaders.  I think its more a change of heart, a 180 from the way we’re going, a respect of people’s worth to God and to each other, that’s needed.

However, the fundamentalism that I grew up in does have some strengths to offer.  We knew our Bibles - yes, it a very literalistic way, and yet we knew the stories and the ancestors and the teachings - they are in my mind and my psyche for the Spirit to use.  We might mock their literalism as shallow, but most of us don’t know our own faith texts as well.  We might see the devotional readings as sentimental - or perhaps too moralistic, or portraying a simplistic faith - yet how much time to we spend pondering the intersection of faith and life, how much time do we spend in prayer?  We might look down on the way evangelism has turned into buttonholing strangers and turning the idea of salvation into a personal fire escape from Hell, yet have we continued to develop ways to communicate our deepest truths in a way non-church people comprehend and find value in?  How often do we feel the conviction about our behaviors and seek to amend our ways?  And with ardor and passion long for God?  Do we fervently seek to put into practice what we read of God’s will?  Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, working for justice for the powerless?  Seeking resolution for racism, or sexism, or elitism, or homophobia?  Seeking a lifestyle of simplicity, fighting the materialism of our era?  Working for the good of creation and care of this planet’s environment?  Fighting for a livable wage that honors both people and work?  

Have we retreated behind our walls, trusting for personal salvation at the cost of the rest of the world?  My friends, that is not Christianity. Are we laying up treasure in the world, or in heaven? 

This kind of questioning of ourselves and our practice of faith, this kind of examination of our practices - this is the housekeeping of preparation that John preached for the coming of the Christ. Hard questions.  Important questions, especially as we see the waning of the way we’ve done church for so long.  When I attended the 2nd training week for Transitional, or Interim Ministry, I was shocked at the number of stories of local congregations closing up shop. 

Its not all bad - people do join other congregations and live their faith there.  Some churches have voted to sell their buildings and rid themselves of the expense, in order to build affordable housing or do other ministries, while worshipping in a rented space. Individual  churches seem to have a lifespan.  I’ve been to final worship services in closing churches, where they celebrated donating their church organ, communion services and remaining monies to new church plants. 

But by and large, an era is closing, where the “if you build it they will come” view of local churches succeeded.  I don’t have a vision of what comes next - sometimes I see my generation of preachers as bridges to the next form of Christian faith and practice, standing in the gap as one way fades and another emerges.  I want to be open to the future that God will bring in, not stand in its way.  I want to believe that there is resurrection for the church.  Like John the Baptizer, I am looking to the ones coming after me to lead the way - if that’s so, then, like John the Baptizer, I need to be about cleaning house, calling for a deep cleaning among those that profess faith to prepare the way. 

So the Scripture brings us a challenge today, as a part of our preparation, as the Advent of Christ comes nearer.  What needs to be cleaned up in me?  What needs to be set right in the church?  Ask the hard questions, seek the answers - and make the 180 where it needs to be made.  AMEN.

Preparing for Christmas: Close, ..... Advent 2C

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Preparing for Christmas: Close,….

12/9/2018     Advent 2-C      

            The word “ADVENT” isn’t used much in common speech - its a kind of churchy word, or a more formal-sounding word.  If we spoke in a formal kind of way about our Grammy coming to visit, we might say that, “I’m looking forward to Grammy’s advent.” That’s what the word advent means…  If we were writing a paper about technology, we might comment on the advent of the television, or the advent of the internet.  A synonym might be the arrival, or appearance, or emergence of a period or a person.

The Church calendar calls these Sundays before we celebrate Christ’s actual nativity, the season of Advent, a time of looking towards, and preparing for Christ’s arrival.  Our lectionary readings during Advent have to do with Jesus’ birth as well as the arrival of Christ at the end of times - the two can get rather mixed in prophecy.  Preparing for Christ’s arrival, however or whenever, is perhaps the shortest way to describe the meaning. 

  For those of us who already worship Christ, who already seek to follow and serve Christ, who already seek to live according Christ’s good news of the realm of God- what does this preparing mean?  Christ is already with us, filling our hearts and minds and imaginations - we’ve already made Christ welcome. 

Of  course, as much as we’ve welcomed Christ to our life, or opened our life to God, or as much as we’ve answered yes when God sound and found us (to be more theologically correct), there is always more. As we live with Christ, we discover more closed doors and secret places in ourselves, more longings in ourselves that are not yet open to God.   We aren’t ever totally transformed into the image of Christ Jesus.  St Teresa of Avila spoke of the inner journey of following Christ as one of exploring a great castle, starting with the grounds just inside the wall, then hearing the voice of God calling us into the next room which is bigger inside than out; then the next room, and so on and so on - closer and closer, more and more depth, more and more lost in love.  As long as we live, Christ can continue calling us closer.

            Our growing relationship with God is the same kind of thing with the coming of the kindom of God, the realm of Christ, which has both come into the world through Jesus Christ, and yet is still coming into the world as we live out the good news, and one day will be here in full. So its both here, and coming. At the same time.

            Now that’s confusing at first.  In attempting to find a good analogy, I once looked to my garden and the yellow squash plants. I planted a flat seed in the ground, and watched as a little spout came up with its split seed carried on a stem; then its first true leaves.   Now, already, at this point, it IS a squash plant, right?  It could be sold at the garden center at this point, with the label yellow squash.  ts not fully leafed out, nor flowered, nor been pollinated, nor grown a yellow squash - but it (IS already a squash plant.  It is both a squash plant now, with the promise of being more of a squash plant in the future. Then it puts out all those large leaves as it takes in the sun’s energy and grows; then comes the day when buds appear, and then the flowers open.  Some of those flowers, with the right pollination, will start to grow little yellow squashes.  And more yellow squashes.  And then more yellow squashes than we know what to do with.  The stem coming out of the ground gets thick, and turns this way or that.  All the time its a squash plant, however, from when it first emerges until it comes to fruition and fulfills its purpose. 

            So the realm of God came in Christ Jesus, grows with the addition of all who believe, and is not yet what it will be.  So as we have Christ in our heart, we then deepen our faithfulness as we live through life with God, and yet Christ is still calling us on to what we will be in the future. 

            We have to keep an eye on our squash plants - there are a bunch of molds and insects that can damage, even kill them.  And they need water and sun; fertilizer can help, too, if the ground isn’t great.  Now that honey bees have become endangered, I’ve read about people going out with paint brushes, and transferring pollen by hand from the pollen flowers to the bearing flowers.  So there is still attention that needs to be paid, and preparations made for the squashes to grow.  The same with our life following Christ, and growing in the realm of God.   So there is still the promise of more; even though we have opened ourselves and our lives to Christ, we still have preparations to welcome Christ even more fully.

St Teresa of Avila, that I mentioned earlier, says that it is Christ who calls to us from the future, and calls us into the next room of the castle, as she calls the journey of faith.  It is God’s Spirit who creates that longing in our soul for more depth, more understanding, more service, more depth.  We may initially feel this as a restlessness or disquiet. A friend of mine called me recently to talk of an urge to look at seminary, something that has occurred to her off and on over the last year - and since she has a career in music that she loves, and even does music for her church, this has bugged her and not gone away.  Not that she saw herself preaching, she quickly added - its not so much that she feels a call to ministry - its more like wanting to dig deeper into the Bible, and to be able to help those who asked her questions.  She is feeling that tug towards going further with her faith; a step deeper wooing her, in the language of spirituality. Christ is calling. 

For me, its been what I call “following my nose” - something I hear about or read about intrigues me, and seems inviting to me, seems to offer answers or insights for my questions - I have to go explore it and find what this next thing God is calling to me from.  For example, when I was doing a youth ministry after college, the pastor there told me that the Presbyterians had women at their seminary, and was ordaining them.  I was intrigued - as a young woman, I was taught  that only men were preachers, although women did a lot as missionaries, and often led music programs.  That’s where I assumed I was headed.  But here was an opportunity to study the Bible more, and test that odd idea that I might be called to ministry among those Presbyterians about whom I knew only a little.  I had met some Presbyterians, and they seemed okay faith-wise.  So I decided to give it a year and see what happened. 

While at seminary, I was intrigued by the worship professor who, along with his spouse, led silent reflective retreats.  I took a class with him, and learned about the ancient art of soul friends, or spiritual direction. I did a silent retreat with the class, and experienced prayer in a deeper way than I had.  I decided that when I graduated, I would seek a spiritual director.  So I did; then did a training course, where I heard about something else, followed my nose to that and got a D. Min. 

Some growth experiences were more like rabbit holes that I tripped in, and fell, like Alice in Wonderland, to a far land - a land of grief, loss and emptiness.  So far, these have also turned out, after a time of grieving, to be further rooms in that castle of the soul with God.  So the journey is not really in our own hands to direct….God is calling, and sometimes God’s ways are not our ways.  Malachi’s text asks, “Who can endure the days of the messenger’s advent?  Who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refining fire…”   Sometimes the next room of the castle is this kind of place - a place of examination of buried motives, and letting the light of God shine on our places of wrong decisions, or festering hurts. 

You know, as we talk about it, John the Baptist’s quotes from the Hebrew Scripture are apt - valleys filled in, and mountains brought low - we are healed in some places and humbled in others - but the whole point is to make a way for Christ into our life, a way that is level and straight, a way that welcomes and is made ready.   And God’s Spirit is the one who does the road building. 

When the Spirit moves us to look more deeply into Scripture, then there is something in there for us.  When the Spirit nudges us to make our prayer life more important, there is something going on that is from God.  When we finally give in to being healed of an addiction, God is calling.  When we realize we need to quit a practice we know is wrong, that is the Spirit. When we find ourselves coming to church seeking for something - we aren’t sure what, but somehow we’ve been drawn here - that is God calling.  And in all of these, we are preparing for Christ’s Advent, Christ’s birth in a new way in our lives.

Rather than try and resist, let us recognize that God is calling us to a new thing, a deeper faith, a deeper understanding, a renewed commitment - whatever it is, it is important to prepare the way for Christ.  In this season, may we feel the working of the Spirit building a road into our hearts, and like Mary, say “Yes.” AMEN.