How long?

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

Last week, as I was leaving my children’s school after the morning drop-off, a fluttering thing caught my eye. I realized that it was a red and black ribbon, tacked to a tree at the end of the driveway. It had been there since February, when the whole drag had been festooned with the colours of Chardon High School after a very disturbed young man killed some of his classmates, injured others, and changed countless lives forever, including his own.
I wondered, last week, when it was that I had stopped seeing the ribbon. I guessed that over the summer the rest had come down, and this one missed; it was old and a little jaded. But it has been months since the school year began, and I have driven that driveway Monday through Friday, and I had not seen it until last week.
Two days later, I found another one, closer to the school, halfway out of the parking lot. I realized that the one at the end was not an orphan, left by accident; the ribbons had never been removed, but left to fade away. But when had I stopped seeing them?
I was horrified in February when I heard the news. Two of my former Sunday School students were at the school at the time of the shooting, and I longed to hear that they were safe, and my heart went out to their parents. I was proud of the way that they led their community in prayer and strength and comfort in the weeks that followed; but I was angry. They should never have been in that position; this was not an age-appropriate experience for two young teenagers.
I was angry, too, because this was the second time in my own daughter’s high school career that two of her friends had been present in a school where shots were fired (it was fortunate that the first time no one was harmed); the second time that children I had seen grow up in our church had been found to be in mortal danger where they should have been as safe as houses; the second time that I had had to imagine what my friends were going through, waiting for their sons to come home. Twice in four years, children from the same congregation had witnessed gunfire in their schools.
Last week, those ribbons snuck out from behind their trees one by one to accuse me of letting inertia outrun anger, resignation outlive grief. When had I stopped seeing them?
There are those who will never forget what happened last Friday, and today my heart goes out to them, I weep for them, and they are in my prayers.
But the ribbons have fixed me with their long pins: they want to know, How long will you remember this time? Long enough to make a change? Long enough that next time will never be?

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Year C Advent 3: Rachel refused to be consoled

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

Here’s Matthew’s gospel, telling what happened not long after Jesus was born:

Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old and under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they were no more.”

When John was born, when Jesus was born, when the two cousins were young children, too young to know the details of what was happening, but old enough to absorb the fear and the anger and the grief of their elders, this outrage was happening in the heart of their nation, in the cradle of their society, and it was unimaginable, and it was cruel, and it flew in the face of the good news that the angels had just proclaimed, “Peace on earth, goodwill to all people.”

No wonder John’s version of the good news was so conflicted and uncompromising, so harsh and unyielding.

“You brood of vipers,” says John. “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” With these and many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news.

Getting good news out of these and other exhortations; it’s like getting blood out of a stone. It makes about as much sense as the news that we hear, that while we live in one of the richest countries in the world, one in every seven people lives in poverty, one in five children does not know where his next meal is coming from. Living in the land of the free, where one person’s freedom to keep firearms may at any moment rob another person’s freedom to live safely and without fear, even a child’s, even a mother’s. Living in a city where healthcare is big business, where hospitals act as worldwide magnets for advanced treatments and technologies, and the poor and the middle income struggle to find adequate access to mental health services for themselves and their families. Where living in the land of the brave means celebrating with tears of anger and grief the courage of an elementary school teacher who lost her life trying to protect the children in her care.

But that’s just John’s point.

Being children of Abraham is not sufficient to guarantee righteousness. Being part of a nation that is called and blessed by God is a gift, not a self-fulfilling prophecy of doing the right things. Being part of a blessed society does not mean that it will not take work and discernment and hard decisions in order to do the right things. In fact, doing the right thing may be counter-cultural and go against the grain even in a blessed community, whether it means tax collectors resisting the tyranny of greed and the prevailing culture of corruption; whether it means sharing our food and our resources with those who have too little, rather than keeping what we claim as our own only for ourselves; whether we need to stand against our culture of either denying or criminalizing mental illness, and instead name our demons and help those who suffer; or whether it means giving up political expediency to do the difficult work of addressing our problem of gun addiction; we can find ourselves in John’s exhortations; his advice applies to us.

John lived in a nation called and chosen and blessed by God, which nevertheless had fallen prey to the oppression of the empire and had lost its way within itself. He lived under a king of the Jews, a leader of the chosen people, who could go so wrong, so far away from the paths of righteousness, as to order the killing of innocent children just because he was afraid of a rumour of good news.

We live in a country blessed with a fairly determined tradition of democracy, a pretty decent overall standard of living, judiciously applied laws and civilized expectations, universal education and an interest in the good of the commonwealth. Yet in weeks like this one we are lost and we are bewildered. Christmas carols jangling the supermarket aisles clash with the somber news on the car radio, and every crying child is a symbol of what we have lost.

“A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they were no more.”

There is a time to respect Rachel’s refusal to find consolation. There is a time to sit quietly beside her while she rages and rents her clothes and wails her grief. There is a time to let the good news wait, because for now it can hardly be heard over the loud lamentation, and it will, after all, still be there tomorrow.

John said, “One more powerful than I is coming.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

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Words

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

There are no words for some days;
there are no words to take away
the grimness of the children’s story,
fantastic in its horror, incredible
yet all too real; we reel, we recoil;
there are no words.
Even as we wait on the Word that was
and is and is to come,
the light of the world, the life born in darkness,
even as we wait on the Word,
there are no words.

 

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Broody vipers

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

“John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You broody vipers!” (Luke 3:7 … almost)

broody vipers

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Year C Advent 2: John’s story: to be continued

Posted on December 9, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

The first in a two-part mini sermon series at Church of the Epiphany, Euclid

There is a backstory to today’s gospel. Luke gives us lots of context: who was ruling where, and had been for how long; he gives us a snapshot of the political situation, the state of the temple priesthood, a backdrop of desert scrub and wilderness; but the story itself has got a little shaken up by our lectionary selections; last week, Jesus was preaching at the end of his ministry; this week, John is preparing for it; in a week or two, they will both be back in the womb, awaiting Jesus’ birth at the dead of night on Christmas Eve.

It’s like one of those movies which is edited so that flashbacks compete with foreshadowing, and the present thread of plot slithers through, possible to follow but difficult to grasp and hold onto.

It’s like coming to church and giving out Christmas presents for the Jesse tree before Advent’s half over, and planning Christmas dinners and parties before the candles are lit, and making new year’s resolutions at the beginning of December; and every week, every time we meet we tell the story of Maundy Thursday and the last supper; of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, even in the deep midwinter.

So it’s no surprise, perhaps, that John bursts onto the stage out of order and unkempt, right after his father has sung him a lullaby.

Because that’s what we heard between the first and second lessons today: Zechariah’s song; we sang it as a hymn of praise, the song which Zechariah sang to his newborn son.

So here it is in flashback: the beginning of the story of John, who in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, when Herod was tetrarch in Galilee and his brother Philip in Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch in Abilene, and Pontius Pilate, of whom we will hear much more in the months to come, was governor Judea – this John heard the word of God and had no choice but to share it out loud.

Back in the day, when Herod was king of Judea, there was a priest called Zechariah, who was married to the daughter of a priest, called Elizabeth, and they were good people, and they lived alone together, each other their all, since they had no children. One day, Zechariah was burning incense in the temple, while the multitudes prayed outside, and an angel appeared and told him that he would have a son, called John, and that his son would be the cause of great rejoicing, and would turn many hearts back to God, preparing the people of God for the salvation of God.

Zechariah was taken aback and tried answering back, which despite the angels’ habitual greeting of, “Do not fear,” was apparently not such a good idea. The angel, Gabriel by name, told Zechariah that for his rash words, he would be unable to speak any more until the child was born. Perhaps Gabriel was concerned that Zechariah’s doubt would spoil the surprise gift for everyone else, and wanted to keep him quiet for that reason. At any rate, Zechariah was not able to speak again until after the angel’s promise was fulfilled, and Elizabeth was safely delivered of a son, and his father, following the angel’s instructions this time, because he was nothing if not a quick learner, wrote on a tablet that the child was called John. And just as Gabriel said, his arrival caused quite a stir, and Zechariah, knowing a little more than the rest from their earlier conversation, sang a song inspired by the Holy Spirit, and told him, “Blessed is the Lord our God, for he has visited us and redeemed us, and saved us; he has remembered us, and brought us into his presence. And you, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, to tell the people of his salvation, of the forgiveness of their sins, because God is merciful, and God’s light has dawned upon us and upon all who live in darkness and in the shadow of death; God shall lead us into the ways of peace.”

Scroll forward to the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar. John, the son of Zechariah, is living in the wilderness of Judea when the word of God comes upon him and tells him that it is time, it is time to live into the future that the angel promise, that his father proclaimed, that he would turn the hearts of the people back to God in preparation for the coming of God’s salvation, and he used the words of the prophet Isaiah from centuries gone by, “Prepare the way of the Lord; all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

John bursts onto the stage in today’s gospel, unkempt and out of order; but he has not appeared out of nowhere. His story has been generations in the making; his father’s song casts the foreshadowing all the way back to Abraham; his baptism recalls the Exodus through the Red Sea; he quotes the prophet Isaiah who has apparently been watching a National Geographic documentary about continental drift, valleys being raised up, mountains being laid low, the land shifting through the ages and epochs of the earth. He is located very precisely by Luke in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod and Philip and Lysanius the tetrarchs of their respective provinces, and Anna and Caiaphas high priests in the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem; but his story is timeless; it hovers over time and space, preparing the way for God’s mercy and salvation, preparing creation, preparing the people for their forgiveness and redemption by repentance and baptism in living waters.

It is a story which began with the Spirit of God moving over the waters of the deep, preparing them for creation. It is drawing to a point: it has been for thousands of years, and God is still coming, and we are still waiting, and we do not wait in vain. It is a story which continues in our midst, as we are called to repentance and into our baptismal covenant, to make straight the paths of God, to walk in the ways of peace, to level the playing fields and the make smooth the rough ways which our fellow people are called to walk upon, to respect the dignity of all flesh, in order that we may be ready to see God’s salvation when it comes. The gifts we give at Christmas, the season of giving, mimicking good St Nicolas and his like; those gifts must be backed up by the kind of generosity which knows no season; the kind of charity which will not rest until all people have what they need to live on level ground; which seeks to change the topography of the world so that everyone is led into freedom, so that everyone can know peace, everyone share in health and security, so that everyone can see the light of God’s salvation, instead of living in the shadow of death and the darkness of oppression.

In Advent, we hear the story of John the Baptist as though it were an event long past, but if we listen closely, we hear its echoes still whispering through our own worship, our own prayers, our own times. We are the baptized and the baptizers, and we are the ones called to continue the legacy of John’s story, which began in the mists of time and which continues to call to the people of God, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Next week, John will have more specific advice for the people; so this story is to be continued. In the meantime, we know that God is coming. We know that Jesus is already here and yet to come. We have a story to tell, and we, like John, are called to tell it, to call the people of God to hear it, to prepare for God’s salvation, even here in the wilderness of suburban Cleveland. For this the church was formed and called and set in motion, from generation to generation, just like John, called to proclaim the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, soon to be born and already with us, Emmanuel.

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John’s backstory

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

(Sunday sermon spoiler alert!)

There is a backstory to today’s gospel. Luke gives us lots of context: who was ruling where, and had been for how long; he gives us a snapshot of the political situation, the state of the temple priesthood, a backdrop of desert scrub and wilderness; but the story itself has got a little shaken up by our lectionary selections; last week, Jesus was preaching at the end of his ministry; this week, John is preparing for it; in a week or two, they will both be back in the womb, awaiting Jesus’ birth at the dead of night on Christmas Eve.

It’s like one of those movies which is edited so that flashbacks compete with foreshadowing, and the present thread of plot slithers through, possible to follow but difficult to grasp and hold onto.

So here it is in flashback: the beginning of the story of John, who in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar etc., etc., etc.

Back in the day, when Herod was king of Judea, there was a priest called Zechariah, who was married to the daughter of a priest, called Elizabeth, and they were good people, and they lived alone together, each other their all, since they had no children. One day, Zechariah was burning incense in the temple, while the multitudes prayed outside, and an angel appeared and told him that he would have a son, called John, and that his son would be the cause of great rejoicing, and would turn many hearts back to God, preparing the people of God for the salvation of God.

Zechariah was taken aback and tried answering back, which despite the angels’ habitual greeting of, “Do not fear,” was apparently not such a good idea. The angel, Gabriel by name, told Zechariah that for his rash words, he would be unable to speak any more until the child was born. Perhaps Gabriel was concerned that Zechariah’s doubt would spoil the surprise gift for everyone else, and wanted to keep him quiet for that reason. At any rate, Zechariah was not able to speak again until after the angle’s promise was fulfilled, and Elizabeth was safely delivered of a son, and his father, following the angel’s instructions this time, because he was nothing if not a quick learner, wrote on a tablet that the child was called John. And just as Gabriel said, his arrival caused quite a stir, and Zechariah, knowing a little more than the rest from their earlier conversation, sang a song inspired by the Holy Spirit, and told him, “Blessed is the Lord our God, for he has visited us and redeemed us, and saved us; he has remembered us, and brought us into his presence. And you, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, to tell the people of his salvation, of the forgiveness of their sins, because God is merciful, and God’s light has dawned upon us and upon all who live in darkness and in the shadow of death; God shall lead us into the ways of peace.”

“And the child grew and became strong in the spirit, and he was in the wilderness till the day of his manifestation to Israel” (Luke 1:80)

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Zechariah finds his voice

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

This week, we get to read the Song of Zechariah, the loosened tongue of a man whose loins have finally produced an heir after decades of longing and loss; the praise of a priest who was struck dumb by the appearance of an angel who predicted this child, whom he did not, could not believe; the faith of a family man who has finally come home to his wife, his son, his God, a priest provoked into faith finally by the birth of a child.

This is the poem I wrote last year for Zechariah:

Speechless

Tongue-tied and frozen,
teeth on a knife-edge,
overwhelmed and overcome;
if he could have spoken,
told them what he had seen,
where would he find the words?

This year, he wrote his own Advent canticle, and sang it as a lullaby to his sleeping son:

The Song of Zechariah (after Luke 1: 68-79)

When I saw you I knew, for once and finally, that it all was true:
the old stories in which God wins, in which God’s people persevere
despite the odds, they are at liberty to be set free because God is good;
he promised them mercy, the ones who followed David, the ones who believed in
round-table relics and legends of power and peace
and the advent of Abraham long, long ago.
When I saw you, I knew, for once and finally, that it all will come true,
in the end,
because your face was brightened by my tears of joy,
and in your eyes the light of the angel’s promise shone,
and the glory of the Lord threatened to break free like the cry of a newborn child.

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Unexpected gifts: Saint Nicholas

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

A homily for Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland’s Evensong celebration of the Feast of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra

As a child, I heard the story of Jesus welcoming the children and he was the antidote to unfriendly adults, the ones who frowned on childish behaviour or my constant questions, the ones who told us to play quietly and stay out of the way. Jesus understood, we were given to understand from the story, what it was to be a child and to need that person who would stop whatever they were doing and pay attention to us, recognize our need for recognition, embrace and love us.

As a parent, I hear the story and I am so grateful to Jesus, not only for loving me as a child, but also for loving my children, for welcoming them, for embracing their littleness, their childish behaviour, their entirety. They’re older now, but still, I am grateful whenever anyone sees my child for the lovable and loving creature that he is, when they appreciate my child’s beauty and talent, when they welcome her with open hearts, open minds, open arms. It can be a cold, dark world out there, and no parent can offer quite enough warmth and light entirely to counter that. It takes others. It takes great love. It takes Jesus.

So when Jesus unexpectedly sorts out his disciples and takes them to task for trying to keep the children out of sight and out of mind – not so much seen but not heard as unseen and unheeded – his gift is not only to the children but to their parents and everyone who loves them. It is for those who enjoy the childish giggling and wriggling, and it is for those who need to learn how to love them. His disciples thought that they knew what Jesus needed and wanted from them in regard to the children, and they were wrong, but he put them right with his unexpected grace.

I am reminded, when I hear this story, of a December church service that I attended fifteen years ago – long ago and far away, as they say. I was, let’s say, as stately as a galleon in full sail, hugely pregnant with our youngest child. Our son, who was a lively and large twenty-one-month-old toddler, decided that hymn-singing time was a great opportunity to shed some excess energy by running circuits of the church, up the side aisle and down the centre, round and round he went. As long as the music lasted, only one or two people wrinkled their noses, and I let him be. But as the last notes died away, and the congregation shuffled expectantly, settling themselves for the Eucharistic prayer, I tried to intercept him and persuade him to cease and desist from his circuit training. He was not impressed by the request. The more I tried to catch him as he passed, the faster he ran and the louder he giggled. His unborn sister was something of a handicap to wrestling with the little darling, and I did not know quite what to do next.

The priest was by this time reaching the part of the prayer where everyone joins in the Sanctus, the Holy, Holy, Holy. Without missing a beat, without changing his tone, his timbre, his volume, his rhythm, he stepped out from behind the altar, came around and just as my son swooped by, scooped him up and sat him squarely on his hip. They returned to the altar together, and I watched my son watch my friend from close quarters, transfixed and firmly pinned to his side as they continued to celebrate the Eucharist together, the bread becoming body, the wine becoming blood, my astonished son becoming a part of the priest’s prayer.

The gifts of that December day were abundant. The Communion, offered as always as a sign and a means of God’s grace and glory given freely to us, God’s children. The respite and relief offered by a sympathetic friend to a pregnant mother. The image, one which never left me and which guided my vocational journey, of the possibility of celebrating Communion with a baby on one hip; I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes, so by the time I was ordained, my son is rather more likely to carry me than I him, but still, it has always been important to me, to my call, to know that this thing happened and that God, I think, smiled on it.

And what gifts did my son receive that morning? What possibilities opened up for him in that moment of grace? What did it mean for this young child to be lifted up to the table and brought close to Christ rather than shut down, told off, sent away by Jesus’ disciple?

When we offer gifts, especially the unexpected, unrequited, even the unrecognized ones, we change more than we see, we give more than we give away.

Funnily enough, that church was named for Saint Nicolas. True story.

We don’t know a whole lot about Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, and the legends around his name might be true or they might be something else; but imagine for a moment that this one happened just as we were told: that three sisters, expecting nothing but an uncertain future, or worse, a future certain to bring them disgrace, dishonour and distress, found instead one morning a bag of gold sufficient for each one’s dowry, in their stockings or their shoes, seemingly fallen from the sky down their chimney. That gold did more than pay their way into society. It raised their imaginations out of the fireplace and up the chimney and into a world with a wide blue sky. It gave them the certainty that mystery is a way of life, that the world can be kind, that virtue is rewarded, that wonders never cease. Those gifts fell into their stockings like glitter or confetti to decorate the gold, and they probably lasted longer in their possession.

And what of their father? How did he feel to find that he was not alone in caring for his family, that he did not have to shoulder the burdens of his whole world, that there was lightness and a bright future beckoning after all? The Nicholas of legend gave that family far more than gold.

Other legends of Nicholas – the saving of sailors, the relief of famine – continue to tell the story that the world is fuller than our imaginations, that help is closer than we think, that wonders never cease. A description by Joe Wheeler says that, “When [Nicholas] taught the gospel, people said listening to him was like receiving precious gems.”[1] His unexpected gifts gave to his people more than he gave away.

Which makes me think that one might not need three bags of gold to follow in his footsteps, nor even a silver tongue; but with only a generous spirit and a heart to give, a little kindness, a little imagination, a little playfulness, the smallest gift – a smile, a word, an embrace – can become a sign of God’s unexpected grace.

Jesus’ unexpected embrace of the children was just one small sign of the unimaginable love which had broken into a cold and dark world. In the uncertain season of Advent, with its business and bustle, its preparations and parties, its wondering what will come next, God’s unexpected gift is just around the corner, never out of reach, already here, but still worth waiting for; that swaddled bundle of Christmas joy, the long-expected, but surprising and really quite unusually small and childlike Saviour of the world.

[1] Joe Wheeler, Saint Nicholas (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), p. 12 – via books.google.com

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Year C Advent 1: New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

I think that it was the phrase, “dissipation, drunkenness and the worries of this life,” heard just now in the gospel according to Luke, that made me think of New Year’s resolutions.

New Year’s resolutions. We’ve all made them. We’ve all broken them. Some of us might even have kept one or two. They are plans rather than products, aspirations more than achievements. They are often quite negative in their tone: I have to give up smoking, stop biting my nails, cut down on spending, or cakes, or caffeine. Less often, they are positive and hopeful: I want to do more exercise, learn a new language, improve my health, my finances, my relationships.

Look at the gospel of Luke: they’re all there, the negative resolutions and the positive. For the sake of the weight around your heart, give up dissipation, drunkenness and the worries of the world – classic new year’s resolutions – and keep alert, praying at all times.

Now, you know that Advent begins the new church year. This is a new beginning for us; new candles are lit to bring light into the darkest times of the year, new hymns are sung to herald the awakening of hope in the darkness; it is a year that begins in expectation, the longing for Christ’s birth in our midst. It begins with preparations and parties and the excitement of anticipation. And if it’s a new year, it must also begin with resolutions.

The other readings are full of the promises of the new year, the new reign of God, the new life: God will fulfill promises for justice and righteousness; God will bring all of the saints and believers together with the Lord Jesus and increase their love and make their hearts holy and blameless; because God is gracious and upright, and teaches the humble, the lowly, even sinners, in the ways of righteousness.

God teaches the ways of the Lord to sinners, and guides the humble in doing right.

God’s resolutions never fail, and they are for every day, not only New Year’s day, or the first day of Advent.

We often base our New Year’s resolutions on what we would like to change about ourselves, and Advent is good for spiritual stock-taking; what “weight” around our hearts would we like to shed; which healthy habits would we like to encourage: will we resolve to pray at all times? Our stewardship team thought that Advent is a great time to talk about our plans for giving of ourselves, our money, our time and effort in the new year, because it’s all about preparing for what is coming next. But in Advent, as well as personal goals, in the church we also are preparing the world, helping the world to prepare for the continuing and ever-new inbreaking of God’s kingdom.

So what is it that we would like to change in the world around us? What, when we look around, causes us heaviness of heart, and can we lighten those burdens?

We were all horrified this week by the death of a vulnerable young boy, and by the desperate lives of his mother and her family. We know that the church has a role in promoting healthy relationships and sound and safe families; so what are we to do about it? Some of us are called to help through professional or volunteer work. None of us has the magic resolution, the perfect plan that will stop this kind of tragedy from ever happening again, but we all have a part to play in looking out for our neighbours, in our schools, in our children’s group of friends, in our church. And we can all pray, at all times, for those in danger and in fear.

To take another example, yesterday was World AIDS Day, and we know that the church has a role to play in promoting public and personal health – how many sick people did Jesus touch and make whole? So what are we to do about it? What should we resolve? How can we use our influence, our resources, our friendship to help and encourage someone else’s good health: by supporting healthcare initiatives and preventive services, by giving someone a ride to the doctor, by checking in with someone we know is having a hard time. And we can pray, at all times, for the sick, the sorrowful, the hurting.

Pray at all times, says the gospel, pray night and day, says the epistle, to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul, says the psalm, I put my trust in you. Show me your ways, teach me your paths, lead me in your truth, remember your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting.

The reason that our own new year’s resolutions so often fail is that we expect so much out of them, because we forget that they are processes, plans, rather than products. Writing on a piece of paper, I will pray night and day, will not make it automatically happen. Rather, we need to practice over and over to replace habits for which we no longer have a use with ones that we would prefer, which will promote our health and wellbeing and the common good of those around us. Often, we need support: groups abound for assisting with weight loss, education, financial management, emotional support, even struggles with addiction. A church community to help us to pray and to serve.

We know that our world is in dire need of some good news, some hope, and between us we have the good news, and we know the source of the world’s hope, and all through Advent we are going to be getting ready to sing it from the rooftops; but here’s the thing: the hope is already here. The new year has already begun. The good news is not a secret, not a surprise to be kept under wraps until Christmas morning. So what are we to do about it? Pray at all times for those you know could use a good word from God, could use some company to get them through the dark days and long nights, for those who need the hope of the world that is offered not only at Christmas but all of the time, day and night, at all times in the love of Jesus Christ our Lord. Then tell them about that hope.

Tell them about the resolutions that God has made, not just this year but from everlasting, not just for this season but forever: that God has promised justice and righteousness; that God has promised to lead us in the paths of peace, in God’s own footsteps, even if we are sinners, even if we are ever so humble. God has promised redemption, compassion, love, hope in the dark times, joy in the depth of winter.

Tell them about your hopes, your joy in the midst of the darkness. Bring them with you to see the light, the candles lit in the midwinter, the hope proclaimed in times of turmoil that the Prince of Peace is coming, is already here, Emmanuel, God with us. Invite them to raise their voices with ours and say, Amen. Come Lord Jesus; and know, he hears us, and he is here.

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Luke 21:25-36

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Rosalind C Hughes

Dissipation, drunkenness and the
worries of this life circle their prey;
the room dizzies, spins, sickening;
swirling skirts’ colours and patterns
staining the food, pulling you into the dance;
something is calling, falling …
snapping back into sharp-edged focus,
technicolor bright; something’s not right,
something’s not real;
the plastic grapes toxic instead of intoxicating,
the stunning view is taped inside the window.
The stage is set,
the die is cast,
the trap has been sprung.

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