Sermon for a Christmas Eve pageant

Posted on December 26, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

And so here we all are.

Here is Mary, exhausted. There’s a reason that childbirth is called labour: it’s a workout.

Here is Joseph, permanently bewildered, still not really sure what’s happening, but see the love that he has for this woman and her child. It is enough, it seems, for him to move heaven and earth to care for them.

Here is the ox, and the ass, enough said.

Here are some smelly shepherds. Sorry, but the fact is that they have been living on the hillside, keeping warm under a pile of sheep at night; God knows how long since they were last in town and had access to a shower. So, some smelly shepherds.

But it is the shepherds who give everyone pause for thought. They tell anyone who will listen that they were visited by angels, that the angels told them to come into this most intimate and invitation-only of places, the delivery room. They justify their outrageous breach of etiquette, health and hygiene, and basic common sense with a tale of heavenly choruses and peace on earth.

No wonder all who heard it were amazed. I think that might have been an understatement.

But Mary, who had the greatest reason to resent their intrusion, to reject their advances, to kick them out on the street no questions asked; Mary recognized the angel’s style from her own encounter. Mary treasured their words, and kept them in her heart to consider later, when she might have had some sleep.

It was the song of the angels that sang her to sleep that night:

Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth, peace among those whom God favours.

This most highly favoured lady knew how to sing the Gloria to God. But what of this peace on earth? She had grown up in a time of oppression, rebellion, and Romans. Never, almost never, had the country known peace. Let alone the whole earth. So she pondered these things in her heart.

[Along with the pageant children, we had a brief discussion about what it might mean to ponder peace on earth, and whether we might come up with any good ideas.]

We have been puzzling about peace on earth for millennia, and it seems that so far we have not found a better solution than Jesus’ suggestion that we start by loving God, and finish up by loving the image of God in one another.

Jesus, the baby in the manger.

When our bishop was here a couple of months ago, he found himself visiting the weekend after a five-month-old baby died after being shot in her car seat in Cleveland. Do you remember that? He told us that if that child had been brought here for baptism, we each, we all would have promised to do everything in our power to raise her in the love of the Lord, which means, first of all, to let her live. And then, it means, to do everything in our power to realize that peace on earth which passes our understanding right now, so that she might know nothing but the love of God, reflected in those around her, living in peace and goodwill with one another.

Angel dust dreams.

Innocent child, born into a less than innocent world.

There is a reason that God came to us as an infant, as vulnerable as a human being can be, completely dependent upon the permission of the world to let him live. And then, as all children are, in need of great love, if he is to know the love of God, the love of neighbour, the love which passes all understanding.

He is born as a baby, so that when he is brought before us, we cannot help but promise to do everything in our power to protect him, to help him to grow in the love of the Lord, and for a moment, as we look on him and love him, mellowed by the Christmas light and evolutionary programming to protect the young; for a moment, we really mean it all.

That is where peace on earth begins, in hearts and minds that really mean it all: the love of God, the love of neighbour, the love for every child, because each one bears the image of God, each one is a child of the living, loving God of all.

This is where peace begins, in the words of the angel: Do not be afraid; in the confused faith of the smelly shepherds; in the warm acceptance of the ox and the ass; in the gentleness of Joseph; and the labour of Mary.

This is where peace begins, in the infant born in the image of God, the saviour of the world. Amen.

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Year C Advent 4: kissing cousins

Posted on December 20, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

When we moved to Singapore, in 1998, my cousin and her husband were packing up to move back to Britain. We overlapped by just a couple of weeks. Lisa came out to the condo and gave me some tips on Singapore living, and showed me a few good places to go shopping, and dropped off their unfinished liquor which they would not be shipping home.

We hadn’t seen one another in a couple of years, since her wedding, I guess; and we haven’t seen one another now, I think, since my mother’s funeral. We keep finding ourselves a few thousand miles apart, crossing paths in unexpected ways; at one point, when she ended up in Cambridge, she was teaching English as a foreign language in the house next-door to my birth mother’s home. Cousins are the stuff of coincidences.

I was at a seminar in September, where one of the panelists was Chuck Wynder, Missioner for Social Justice and Advocacy for the Episcopal Church. I don’t remember the moderator’s name, but the two men reported that in talking together before the meeting, these two apparent strangers had discovered that they were, in fact, cousins.

Mary and Elizabeth were related somehow, we don’t know whether by blood or marriage, we don’t know how closely; casual relatives without close definition are routinely translated as cousins, so that is how we know these two women: as cousins.

For Mary, the journey to Elizabeth’s house was no little undertaking. From Nazareth to the hills outside Jerusalem is a trek, and the road was not easy nor particularly safe. It was a strong and overriding impulse that drove Mary to the house of her cousin.

The angel had told Mary that Elizabeth was six months pregnant, even though she was much older and had never carried a child before. Perhaps Mary needed to convince herself that the angel was a truth-teller, before she found herself too far along her own strange road to motherhood. Perhaps she went to Elizabeth for proof.

Elizabeth had not been visited by an angel. Instead, the angel had gone to her husband, Zechariah, as he was serving in the temple. Zechariah had been dubious: “How can I be sure of this?” he asked, and the angel got rather angry, and struck the man mute, until the child should be born.

Perhaps Mary went to compare notes on angel visitations, to convince herself that she was not going mad. Of course, she couldn’t talk to Zechariah about it, because he was unable to tell his own story; so she went to Elizabeth for the translation.

Perhaps she was simply afraid, and needed a time-out, a time to gather her strength and courage before confessing to her family that, no matter the odds, she was in the family way.

Whatever her reasoning, Mary ran to Elizabeth, and when Elizabeth saw her coming, we are told, the unborn Baptist, John, jumped for joy in her womb. I believe that this is the only time in Scripture where we are allowed to imaging John the Baptist joyful or jumping.

When my cousin and I overlapped in Singapore, I had three small children under four, and she was carrying her first. I don’t know which of us was running for the hills.

I have met women who have become mothers for the first time later in life, like Elizabeth, and they are terrified; with good reason, I am beginning to feel in my bones. I have met women, like Mary, girls who have fallen pregnant much too soon, much too young; and they, too, are terrified.

Yet when they find one another, these two, when they find where they overlap, Elizabeth’s baby jumps for joy, and Mary is strengthened to sing out her praises to God; to allow herself the luxury of joy, and hope, for her own strange child, her own strange twist of fate.

“My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices,” Mary can finally say.

No matter how close we are to God; no matter how close God comes to us – Mary was carrying the divine child in her very body – no matter, she needed her cousin, she needed a friend, she needed someone outside of herself to understand, to help her carry her burdens of joy and of sorrow. She needed companions on the way.

For most of us here, our abiding and pressing concerns do not have to do with pregnancy or childbirth, let alone strange angelic visitations. But we have our need of overlap, our need to know that we are not alone, that we are not too unusual, that we, too, bear the image of Christ in our bodies, on our souls.

Some of us live in families. Some of us live alone. Some of us live with families not altogether of human origins. Cousins can be people we know well, with a shared history and common ground. Cousins can be strangers, discovered by chance at some meeting or another, brought together by grace and by God. No matter how we find one another, something inside of us leaps for joy when we recognize Christ in one another.

No matter whether we live alone or with others, we each of us carry our burdens of grace and of grief in our own bodies, and bring them to God in our prayers and our praise; and no matter how close we can be to God by ourselves; no matter how close God has come to us in our lives; we still come together, as strangers, as family, because there is nothing like sharing that joy, that makes babies leap in the womb, even John the Baptist.

When we deprive one another of our company, we deprive them of those moments of great joy, when they recognize Christ in us, in the overlapping images of God that we carry in ourselves, in our lives. Sometimes it is in the blossoming of life; sometimes it is in the grief of the cross that we carry; no matter, when we offer ourselves to one another, we offer the image of Christ, and we would be hard pressed to justify withholding that grace from those around us.

On Thursday night, and Friday morning, we will see people here that we haven’t seen in a while, running home or running for the hills; coming out from under the shadow of the cross to worship at the cradle. Let’s find the overlap we share with them, let them know that our hearts leap for joy to see them, let their hearts be lifted into song by our welcome. Let it be said of us that we are blessed, who have believed that what the Lord has said to us will be accomplished.

And for ourselves, whether we are running home or running for the hills, may the Christ child meet us in unexpected ways, and we find ourselves strangely strengthened, oddly joyful, to find our path overlapping his. Amen

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Afterwards

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

An Advent meditation for/from the Diocese of Ohio

On this date eighteen years ago, my waiting had finally come to an end. One day earlier, our Christmas baby, our Omega child, had been born in the night. Of course, the end of one kind of waiting led to the beginning of several other sorts: waiting for the kettle to boil for my cup of tea; waiting for the midwives to pack up their things and leave; waiting for the family to fall back to sleep, all in our bed by now. Father, daughter, son, mum – except for my hand, which had fallen asleep in the bassinet basket in which the new baby slept close by our bed.

One wait over, I watched through the rest of the night, the rise and fall of their breathing: husband, daughter, son, and this new, strange creature, the Omega child, waiting for them to wake up and remember what comes next.

When the waiting of Advent is relieved – not long now – and the tension is pricked and deflates like a balloon, the watch has only begun.

When the season of Advent is done, its soul continues to whisper through the stable, through the suffering, through the tomb, through the Spirit: “Remember what comes next.”

Though the wait may be over, the watch has only begun. Amen: Come, Lord Jesus.

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Second thoughts

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

Mary did not float through her pregnancy without her swollen feet touching the ground.

When Mary returned to her senses, the bread was burning, and she nearly took the skin off her hands snatching it from the fire in a hurry. A sense of unease followed her through the afternoon. She was used to her spells of absence, time lost, bread burnt; but rarely did she dream. Now, she had the nagging feeling of a veiled memory hiding, closeted behind her conscious mind, bright and hazy somehow all at the same time.

When she missed her period, and her breasts were tight and her bladder squeezed, she knew the signs; but it hardly made sense. Between bouts of sickness and fear, the memory still pressed against the door in her mind, insistent but in vain.

Except, she thought, something about Elizabeth.

Elizabeth had gone home to the family house in the hills, hiding her changing shape from the city. Older women exchanged dark looks and grim whispers; a woman of Elizabeth’s age, swelled up as though with child, more often than not was consumed instead by her own womb. But, Mary knew, there was also that story of Zechariah, the accident in the temple, which sounded a little like one of her own episodes, but with added drama.

At least, thought Mary, with Elizabeth she would have time to puzzle out her own condition, and maybe there would be wisdom, and Elizabeth would be in no condition to scold her.

Mary went in haste to the hill country.

Elizabeth saw Mary coming and cried out to her cousin, “Blessed are you among women!”

A sliver of light cracked open in Mary’s mind; as though from far away a shaft of memory pierced her brain, and she fell. When she came around, she was lying in Elizabeth’s house, singing the words as though they ran through her without troubling her present mind. She heard herself with a kind of wonder:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.”

She looked at Elizabeth, and the older woman smiled, shook her head. “When I saw you coming, he nearly leaped out of my throat.” She laid a hand on her drumskin belly. “God is with you, Mary. Only believe that, and be blessed.”

Again, that splinter of light.

Mary stayed three months, until the sickness had subsided and Elizabeth sure that she was fit for the journey home. Her own time was near, and as concerned as she was for her young cousin, Elizabeth was afraid for herself as well. She was old, she knew, for this kind of adventure. Better that Mary not witness her trouble; the young one would have trouble enough of her own to face at home.

Later, they stopped on their way to register in Bethlehem. John was growing strong, and Elizabeth looked weary but satisfied. Mary was still searching for that crack in her memory that would let the light through. Elizabeth advised her not to push it.

It was the shepherds who broke it down for her. As soon as they said the word, “angel,” Mary heard his voice again: “Do not be afraid.” When they told of the singing, she heard an echo, the sound of brightness breaking.

As the people chattered and scuttled around her, Mary looked into the light of her son’s dark eyes as he fed, and pondered it all in her heart.

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Year C Advent 3: Rejoice anyway

Posted on December 13, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

The third Sunday in Advent is known as Gaudete Sunday. The rose candle is lit – if one is used – and the readings rejoice in God our saviour. Gaudete! Rejoice always, as the letter to the Philippians commands.

And then there’s John the Baptist, speaking with a forked tongue of the wrath to come and good news for snakes. Rejoice.

Context may not be everything, but it might help to remember that John’s exhortations are all uttered against the backdrop of messianic expectation, that God will come imminently to judge and to save the world from judgement. Rejoice, then, vipers.

Zephaniah, even back in the seventh century before the Christian era, wrote of the same messianic expectation. The rest of his book reflects a much more immediate scenario, in which the world of the prophet is going to hell in a handbasket, and he fears that God will end up doing the very thing that God has promised never to do again: that God will repent of ever creating us and our world of sorrows and sin. It is against this backdrop that Zephaniah offers a new vision of a messianic age, one of a new heaven and a new earth, free from besetting sorrow and sin. Rejoice, survivors of the Flood.

As for Paul, writing to the Philippians from prison and in chains, he urges the Philippians, concerned for his fate and their own, to rejoice in the Lord always. They are embroiled in some kind of internal conflict: he urges them to agree in the Lord, to be gentle with one another; rejoice.   Against these backdrops the message of John: good news for poisonous snakes; seems a little less incongruous. Rejoice, anyway!

So what should we do? the people ask John. First of all, he says, don’t make things worse. Don’t presume upon the privilege of your ancestry. Don’t act unethically. Don’t be greedy, stingy, or fraudulent. If you can manage these, then you might have a go even at making things better. Share what you have. Distribute your surplus to those who are running at a deficit. If you have two coats, give one to someone who is cold.

John is talking about cleaning house, preparing the way for the Christ who is to come. He wants the people coming to him to understand that their hearts will receive him more easily if they are clean, and open; if they have done an inventory of their dirt and cleared it out, repenting of sin and submitting to the cleansing ritual of baptism. As we clean and decorate our houses for Christmas, we might think of John’s exhortation to clean our hearts, clean up our acts, clean out our lives, make them ready for the Christ; not paying lip service to the rituals of Christmas, but preparing a place fit for Christ to come to our table and sit with us, Emmanuel, God with us.

Are we presuming upon our privilege, of race or of background, at the expense of others? Let’s see if we can’t air out some of that dirty laundry. Are we cheating ourselves or others out of the best parts of ourselves, out of greed or fear or denial of our need for one another? Let’s clean out that closet. Are we sharing as we should? Let’s count our coats.     You know those moments of anxiety when a guest is invited and we are not ready? Instead, says John, rejoice to receive him. Be ready. He is coming. Rather than cover up the cracks with Christmas decorations, let’s do it right this time (I am preaching to myself here, you understand).

If John addresses our personal preparations, then Paul is all about our interpersonal arrangements. Let your gentleness be known, he says; let the peace of God, which passes all understanding, speak for you; keep your hearts and minds safe from unnecessary conflict, from disputes that do not matter, that distract from the good news of the gospel of Christ. Let go of envy, do not let insecurity provoke you to argument, or anxiety lead to irritation. Do not let difference divide you, when we are all made in the image of the same God. We are the image of God and of one another. Be at peace, says Paul. Pray for all that troubles you; pray for those folks who trouble you; be at peace.

And then Zephaniah goes beyond the personal, the interpersonal; he goes right to the political landscape, and the fallout from kings who defy God and depend instead upon their own power; people who worship at the altars of false idols and forget the one true God. In an age of war, confusion, and corruption of the character of religion and public life; in an age much like ours, you might think, Zephaniah exhorts the people to rejoice in God, whose way is salvation, whose will will be done, when all else is said and done.

He is coming, says John. Make ready yourselves so that you might receive him without fear, and rejoice.

He is coming, says Paul. Make ready your lives. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Philippians 4:8). Be at peace with one another, so that you might receive him in peace, and rejoice.

He is coming, says Zephaniah. Make ready your world. Do not follow after idols or leaders whose will is opposed to God, and do not be afraid, for God is greater than any of these; rejoice.

When all else fails, rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice anyway. Christ will come.

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The letter of Zephaniah to the Philippians, as recorded in the Gospel of John the Baptist according to Luke

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

Wondering how to reconcile the rejoicing of Gaudete Sunday with the somewhat confrontational style of John the proverbial Baptist? Try the Glee cast approach: make of a mix-and-match mash-up approach a whole new song. Rejoice!

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice, you brood of vipers! Rejoice in the Lord and exult with all your heart.

Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? The Lord has taken away the judgements against you; he has turned away your enemies. Again, I will say, Rejoice!

Bear fruits worthy of repentance. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. Do not let your hands grow weak, but let your gentleness be known to everyone.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory. He will rejoice over you with gladness; he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.

The Lord is near. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the tree; “I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach,” says the Lord. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.  “I will save the lame and gather the outcast,” says the Lord, “I will deal with your oppressors at that time.”

Do not begin to say to yourselves, “What then should we do?” God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. “I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth,” says the Lord. “At that time, I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you.The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds at that time, when I restores your fortunes before your eyes,” says the Lord.’

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

 

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Lesser known legends of St Nicolas

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

Nikolai was born in Demre, Turkey, formerly known as Myra. Nikolai was born into a wealthy family, but he was orphaned at a young age and raised by monks at a local orphanage.

When he came of age, Nikolai travelled to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage. While there, he saw first hand the places that Jesus had once walked desecrated by division and violence, and he was deeply moved. One story of the saint tells of a time when he was visiting the West Bank, when a mortar fell on a settlement there. He met a pair of parents searching frantically for their son. Nikolai told them, “Wait here!” and ran off, to their astonishment returning about an hour later with the boy, who appeared dazed but otherwise unharmed. Nikolai said that he had prayed to the boy Jesus whose parents lost him in the temple when he was twelve, and Jesus showed him where to find the boy. Later legend reports that the boy was found dead, and that Nikolai restored him to life; but neither Nikolai nor the boy would ever confirm the claim, preferring to emphasize the power of prayer.

On his journey home, Nikolai stopped at the seaside region of the Bodrum peninsula. While there, he witnessed the arrival of refugees from Syria. One day, as the waves grew larger, he saw firsthand the human cost of the civil war and terrorism in that place as a boatload of refugees was capsized, and many washed up drowned on the shore. One boy, a three-year-old, was shared around the world as an image of the terrible loss that the refugees suffered. That night, Nikolai stood vigil on the beach, by turns blessing and cursing the sea; begging it to be kind to its travellers; cursing its cold indifference to their plight. Long after the young boy’s name was forgotten by the world, Nikolai continued to pray for him and his family. He used part of his family money to organize a mission from the monastery to the refugee camps in the area, improving conditions and providing comfort as he could, while they waited to journey to safer havens. New families would be surprised to find, sometime after their arrival, new shoes for all of the children, and a bag of necessities. Rumours circulated that families that were granted a visa to travel on would find packets of money hidden in the socks at the bottom of their packs on reaching their destination, in the currency of the country to which they were travelling.

Nikolai built a prayer house at each camp, which was used in turn by people of all religions. One Good Friday, he recounted the miracle of Muslims and Christians praying together their Friday prayers of lament and loss, and hope for the resurrection.

As his reputation for philanthropy grew beyond his home region, Nikolai received many calls upon his compassion. He was particularly drawn to endeavours that assisted young women, having seen how vulnerable they were to trafficking and other dangers in the camps. He established schools for girls in areas where women’s education was deficient, and in a controversial move, he set up a mission to the United States to promote women’s health and protect women’s health clinics.

There was another side to the gentle saint. At an international church convention, Nikolai was caught on video striking a fellow bishop. The delegates had been discussing recent violent events in their host country of America, and how the church might help to diffuse the explosion of gun violence and disaffection that seemed to be taking place. A bishop had risen to propose the the convention pass a resolution to the effect that their thoughts and prayers were with all victims of violence, when Nikolai, shouting, “Enough, already!” jumped up and punching him in the nose. The subsequent YouTube viral video storm was a low point in Nikolai’s life, although even as he apologized for his outburst, he maintained that if Jesus could turn over the tables in the temple, his fellow Christians could at least turn over a ballot sheet and demand sensible reform to reduce incidents of mass violence.

Nikolai died on December 6th, and was mourned in his home country of Turkey and around the world as a patriarch, prophet, and saint. In the years that followed, countless people came forward to describe his influence in their lives; influence they sometimes described as “a miracle.” He is remembered in many denominations as a patron saint of sailors, refugees, children, especially orphans, the city of Liverpool, and, ironically, non-violence.

In a documentary made shortly after his death, Nikolai’s charitable fund manager described his “open eyes and open heart” view of the world. The success of his philanthropy, he said, was due less to Nikolai’s inexhaustible wealth and more to his inexhaustible wealth of compassion. “The man never knew when he was beaten,” said the fund manager. “If he couldn’t save the world, he would save the family down the street. If he couldn’t save the family, he’d save them a Sunday dinner.”

A consulting psychologist believed that something was arrested in Nikolai when he was orphaned at such a young age. His parents had always insisted to him that he was loved beyond measure, and that God loved him as God’s own child. Nikolai never lost that childlike wonder and trust in that early experience of love.

The documentary interviewed an ancient monk, who had known Nikolai all of his life, and who said simply, “He really, really loved Jesus.”

Because of the proximity of his feast day to Christians, Nikolai is often portrayed in icons offering gifts to the infant Jesus; although the YouTube video from the new Council of Nicaea remains his most-viewed image, as is the way of the world.

 

 

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Preaching peace unpeacefully

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

I preached peace last night. Two hours before the service started, I heard the news out of San Bernardino.

Last weekend, I felt sick writing my sermon as I read online the shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic, and the execution of a Waffle House waitress.

It was not my body torn and plundered, rushed to the hospital, hooked up to medical devices and drips. I did not take that phone call, feel that stomach drop, the folding of the knees, the blood run cold to the floor.

A former schoolfriend shared the news that her husband’s cancer care has turned to comfort care. At dinner, my own husband had said, “I didn’t know if I would be here to celebrate my fiftieth birthday,” and we smiled. Does my relief at his recovery render my grief for my friend insincere?

I am insulated by my privilege and a white painted pulpit from the pain which my preaching addresses. My horror at my own hand-wringing distances me even from myself. Even this post is all about me.

I preached peace anyway; the peace that passes understanding; the peace with which Jesus leaves us, although he spent a lot of time, too, promising persecution. I worry that this will not be received as good news.

I feel lately as though I am always at a funeral, where my place is not within the grave, but standing over it offering prayers. Where my place is not in the front pew, weeping, but beyond it, pleading God for comfort. Where my place is not within the casket, but at its side, making the sign of the cross and declaiming, proclaiming resurrection against the evidence of our eyes.

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Can I say “fiery cat farts” in an Advent meditation?

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

This was originally published by the RevGalBlogPals in their weekly email.

(No cats were harmed in the making of this Advent meditation.)

I adjusted my Advent prayer rituals after acquiring a third cat. Animals are supposed to have a natural fear of fire, so I was surprised when said cat wandered over my Advent candles to check out my prayer book. We were both surprised when the flame rushed up her backside. I screamed. She jumped. The flames on cat and candle, mercifully, blew out. When I caught up with the cat, she appeared relatively unsinged. I don’t think she even knew she had caught fire; she was simply confused by my sudden transformation from contemplative to banshee.

However we try to keep Advent for itself, Christmas, cat-like, has a way of creeping into every space, demanding attention. A season of mood swings: memory bleeds into nostalgia; merriment turns on a dime into hysteria; quietude explodes without warning into fiery cat farts billowing off the festive table.

It becomes ridiculous to try to hold back the chaos of Christmas, the eruption of the Incarnation of God as a mewling infant watching the stars fall. We may as well set aside our fear of fire and embrace the confusion that relocates Middle Eastern refugees into stained glass windows; satellite stations into guiding stars; the not yet into the now.

It never was a season of calm and quiet, getting ready for the birth of God. It was always going to be unpredictable, raucously holy, waiting for a God who redeems the sublime out of the ridiculous.

God, our God: God of the ridiculous and sublime; God in the quiet and the chaos; God in the crib and on the cross: in this season of anticipation and exhaustion; of joy and overwrought emotion; of decoration and decay: Emmanuel. Be God with us. Amen.

 

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Advent in the meantime

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Rosalind C Hughes

Light and dark

his skin and mine. “Who has the time?” he asked. I had said, “I am a process person.”

He said it quietly, but I heard the harmonic ringing out: “Time is a privilege.”

The time between “thy kingdom come” and “thy will be done,” not for wasting only

waiting, glazed into oil painting, hands uplifted, light reflecting, glory hung on the wall.

Time, the first creature to be placed under the dominion of the Adam and the Eve,

but some of us are prone to squander, throw away its bones, instead

of tending, nurturing, pruning it to produce good fruit, forgetting

that our meantime is bound in service to the glory that waits, shyly, just out of time.

An Advent meditation for the Diocese of Ohio. Find more and sign up for daily meditations from around the Diocese here.

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