Jerusalem Jackson Greer's Blog, page 8
February 21, 2017
The Gift of Sight
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This weekend we had a scare.
For about twenty minutes on Sunday I couldn’t see out of my left eye.
It was as if I had looked at the sun for too long, and my eye had been burned. Purple and pink snowflakes, like the ones we cut out of paper with our kids, covered everything. The center of the snowflakes completely obstructing whatever I was looking at. Bleached out objects peaked through the cut-outs in the snowflakes.
After twenty minutes of keeping my left eye covered and sitting very still, the snowflakes melted away. But my eye was still slightly fuzzy and very tired. I felt almost as if someone had punch me gently (is that even possible??) in the socket.
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After conferring with all our resident doctor-people (my sister-in-law,and my boss – a pediatrician turned priest) we decided to go to a walk-in clinic just to be safe.
I have family history of detached retina’s and strokes and diabetes, and we didn’t want to take any chances.
Sweet Man drove, and I blinked at my surroundings and tried to determine whether or not it was snowing pink and purple again, or if I was just sleepy (thankfully, it was just the latter.)
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At the walk-in clinic there was confusion about insurance, and I realized I was going to have to find a replacement for a work event that night, and a tiny little headache began to ping the top of my head.
That is until Sweet Man reminded me that being stressed out wasn’t going to help anyone if it meant I ended up dead or blind. (Don’t worry, he was sweet about how he broke the news.)
The very kind doctor at the clinic couldn’t find anything obviously wrong, but urged Nathan to take me to the eye doctor on Monday. Until then the prescription was a lot of rest and no screens.
So after picking up a late lunch, we went home, where I promptly crawled into bed and slept a good four hours.
Later that night, Nathan held my hand and explained what was happening on Deadwood, while I lay in darkness, my eyes covered with a sleeping mask (his prescription!)
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Monday morning I called the eye doctor and made an appointment first thing.
It turns out that I – who have never had a single migraine – had what is called an Ocular Migraine. Basically I got the spots that often come as a migraine warning, but without any of the others symptoms except feeling really, really, tired (see four-hour nap, followed by ten hours of sleep.)
Such a relief. Huge, huge relief.
Also, it upped my motivation to do all the preventive things in order to ensure that I won’t get diabetes.
Turns out I really really like being able to see.
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And there is so much to see. Chickens and roosters. Flowers and trees. Birds and turtles. My children’s faces. Words on a page. Images on a screen. My husband in overalls and a cowboy hat. New life sprouting from the earth. Stars and the moon and geese flying overhead. Paintings on the wall. Colors and patterns in an old quilt. The names of things.
It’s amazing how eye-opening 20 minutes without sight can be, and how many gifts I must take for granted.
As the season of Lent approaches (just a week away!) I am wondering how I can practice the discipline of being grateful for the things I take for granted the most… My body and all it’s working parts, my marriage and it’s joy, my children and their presence, my work and it’s lessons, the earth and it’s bounty.
I have an idea brewing… now let’s see if this Enneagram 7 can see it through!
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February 19, 2017
Sunday’s Pause Button
From the Lectionary for 2/19/17…
Love Your Enemies
38-42 “Here’s another old saying that deserves a second look: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.’ Is that going to get us anywhere? Here’s what I propose: ‘Don’t hit back at all.’ If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.
43-47 “You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.
48 “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”
Matthew 5:38-48The Message (MSG)
February 15, 2017
At Home in this Life and Pre-Order Gifts
Okay, first of all, before we get to the book, can I just say how much I LOVE my new site design?? HUGE thanks to Jessica Bejot of 5Pine Designs for making me look soooo good online. She captured my style and met my needs perfectly and I am just over the moon, and so excited to be able to launch my new book on this site!
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So now to the 2nd BIG ANNOUNCEMENT of the day!
Y’all, it only took 4 years, but my second book, At Home in this Life: Finding Peace at the Crossroads of Unraveled Dreams and Beautiful Surprises, is about to be released into the world and I could not be more excited.
At Home in this Life is the story of how everything I thought would make me happy came undone, and then how I found a way to make myself at home in this beautiful, messy, amazingly tender, completely unbalanced life, by imperfectly practicing one spiritual discipline at a time—smack in the middle of raising kids, mending the sweaters and burning the bread.
It’s the story of how I finally realized that the “problem” with my life was not my house, my job, or my marriage. My problem was me, and only a Conversion of life, a Transformation of spirit and heart would help. And so I jumped in with both feet into an experiment – an experiment by where I tried to follow God’s leading instead of my plan, an experiment that resulted in a lot of fits and false starts, gut-level honesty and true change. Beautiful, messy, chaotic, daily… this is the story of how I learned to make myself at home in my life. A lesson I will forever need a refresher course on I am sure!
I am really honored that a bunch of my amazing friends have written some beautiful words in support of this book. Shauna Niequist wrote the Forward (bringing me to tears with her generous words,) and Sarah Bessey, Tsh Oxenrider, Micha Boyett, Christie Purifoy, Mark and Lisa Scandrette, Katherine Willis Pershey and Traci Smith have all written the most lovely, humbling endorsements. Sarah’s words in particular took my breath away:
Jerusalem Greer has written a relatable, warm, and utterly charming book of theology within time and place. The radical act of staying put with a community and a home and a family is an example of faith and hope and healing for these fragmented instant times. This is an incarnational book, an embodiment of how God shows up in our right-now lives with steady surprise and everyday richness.” – Sarah Bessey, author of “Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith” and “Jesus Feminist”
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To celebrate the book being available for Pre-Order, I am excited to be giving away a host of free goodies, inspired by the book! To Pre-Order and request your FREE gifts, simply follow this link:
PRE-ORDER
And make sure to tell your friends – I want to give away as many of these goodies as I can!
(Pre-Order Gifts Available Internationally as well as Domestically)
So there you have it my friends!
A New Book!
A New Website!
FREE Gifts!
What more could you want on a Wednesday?
Peace and Blessings,
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February 14, 2017
Pre-Order Gift Pack
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How this Works:
1. Go to one of the following websites to Pre-Order At Home in this Life
2. Come back here and fill out the form below!
To receive your FREE Gift Pack for Pre-Ordering At Home in this Life, please fill out the form below!
[contact-form]
*Note: We will do our best to get the Digital Downloads sent within 48 hours of your submission. The Video Tour and Early Access to the Curated Collection will be at a later date. Thank you!
February 9, 2017
You are a Delight
What if you found out that God doesn’t need you, but instead wants you, simply because God finds you delightful?
(This is the homily I had the honor of giving at The Practice Retreat, a retreat for pastors and church leaders who are looking to go deeper into the ancient spiritual practices and gifts of the Christian tradition. The first half of the retreat was focused on spiritual practices for personal restoration and the second half was focused on spiritual practices for the restoration of the world. I gave this homily at the very intersection where we began to transition from the first to the second.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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As much as I love the liturgy of the of my chosen faith tradition, my first few times leading a service left me jittery. As a participant I love the consistency, rhythm and stability that Liturgy it brings to my chaotic and ever changing life but as a leader who leans heavily on her ability to improvise, the fear of getting it wrong unnerved me from the beginning. Having grown up a Baptist preacher’s kid and then serving in ministry positions at several non-denominational churches, I have internalized the rhythm of a typical evangelical service. A song, a welcome and or prayer, more songs, some announcements, maybe another song or something artsy if the church is progressive – a skit, an interpretive dance, maybe some responsive reading… then, a sermon given with just a brief outline, another song, maybe another improvised prayer and an altar call of some sort along with a closing song, and prayer.
This kind of service I could do with my eyes closed. But learning how to lead the more structured and jam packed liturgy of the Episcopal Church was like relearning how to walk. Nothing felt recognizable or intuitive.
Different services have different structures, Morning Prayer, Noon Prayer, Evening Prayer, Eucharist Rite I, Eucharist Rite II, Healing Service, Compline, they are all a little bit the same and a little bit different. And don’t get me started on learning when to sit, when to kneel, when to stand, and how to know (if it isn’t marked, and it isn’t always marked,) when we are to read together or responsively. So many variables, so many ways to get mess up.
I had only been an official Episcopalian for a few short months, when out of necessity I was called upon to lead our weekly Wednesday night healing and prayer service (that’s right, even Episcopalians believe in the laying on of hands and orienting with oil), a service I had only witnessed once or twice.
Clutching my Evening Prayer bulletin tightly with sweaty hands I forged ahead.
I put on a confident face and plowed ahead, as we read O Gracious Light and the Psalms together, and listened to the lessons. I was just about to start the Song of Mary, the Magnificat when I heard a passionate voice call out from the pews. “Can we stop for silence and reflection?” And I realized with a start that I plowed straight through our moment of silence. I had been so intent on getting to The Next Thing in Bold, that I had overlooked the small italicized line of text that read Silence May Be Kept Here.
So we stopped. I sat down. The small congregation sat down. And there we stayed, in silence, in stillness, while I counted to sixty four times in my head, hoping that was long enough.
After the service was over I hugged Ann and thanked her for stopping me, for calling us all back to stillness. Not everyone would have had the courage to say something, and if she hadn’t I don’t know that I would have ever noticed my mistake. I probably would have spent the rest of my life barreling through that portion of the service.
Since that night I have led Evening Prayer several times. I have even reworked the service bulletin to reflect both the place where we share prayers for healing and the laying on of hands. And perhaps most importantly the place where we pause for silence is marked by bigger, bolder type. And in my copy of the bulletin it is starred, circled, and underlined. And slowly but surely, I have stopped counting to sixty four times, and now simply sit in silence and stillness until the moment passes, whenever that may be.
I am a doer. I learned early f I couldn’t be the smartest/richest/prettiest person in the room, I could at the very least be the most useful. So I became a helpful, useful person. And it turns out that I am good at it and I enjoy it. I like being useful, I love having a task, I like helping.
I like to be always on my toes, to keep moving, keep fixing, and keep managing. After all, useful people always have something to do and someone to talk to. Useful people, for all appearances, are not lonely people..
But this way of navigating the world can also be a crutch. A way to keep myself distracted and out of focus. Which is perhaps why I often keep busy by being useful. Being a helpful, busy, useful person – especially when in ministry – and is a safe thing to be. A busy, useful person like this can do a lot of good in the world, and but the flip side is that a busy useful person can also drown in their own usefulness, they can suffocate from never stopping long enough to replenish their own spiritual and physical oxygen supplies. Usefulness and stillness can be partners, or they can be enemies and for a long time, I only knew them as the latter.
We live in a culture and we belong to a faith traditions that puts a high value on Doing.
As American’s we value Getting Stuff Done.
In my chosen tradition we value activism, and service.
In other traditions the emphasis is often on programs, or multiple action packed services, while others put heavy emphasis on non-stop witnessing, or healing marathons.
And while there is nothing inherently wrong with getting stuff done, with having a strong work ethic, with striving to change the world, with finding a hundred different ways to communicate God’s love during the week, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps, in the midst of all this busyness, we are all suffocating.
We are now a society that is now counting our steps, not our stillness.
We walk laps around the kitchen island at 10 pm in order to make sure we hit our FitBit goal for the day, while our prayer books and bibles stay unopened on our nightstands, while every member of our family stares into a screen when gathered around the table.
In these hard, strange, dark, confusing, and divisive times, the temptation to stay busy and distracted is a powerful one, and I think we may have forgotten how to sit in the heat of the day and wait for the Lord. How to sit in stillness at the feet of Love.
Maybe it is now, when the world seems to be coming apart at the seams, that we should trade in some of our Doing – counter-intuitive as it is – and begin to practice Being. Waiting. Sitting. Silence. Solitude. Stillness.
Stillness is not the same thing as relaxing or being lazy, as Martha suggested of Mary, all those years ago. Being still, isn’t just a physical act. It is an internal act as well. Stillness and Silence are about being present. About having the humility to say “this isn’t all about me or what I can do or what I can say.” The spiritual practices of Stillness and Silence is about cultivating an awareness within ourselves, opening ourselves up to what is beyond us – beyond our abilities to fix, or mend, or solve, or do. Practicing stillness and silence allows us to open ourselves – our hearts, our eyes, and our ears – to the messages of love and new life that God is sending us, in whatever forms they arrive.
But in order to practice true stillness, in order to get to the place of humility in which we can say “this moment is not about me or what I can say or what I can do”, and to instead open ourselves up to the Spirits leading, I think we have to first believe that we are loved.
Really, truly loved.
Not loved for what we can do or say or change or make happen. But instead loved simply because we exist.
In his marvelous book, The Supper of the Lamb, Father Robert Farrar Capon writes the following:
The world exists, not for what it means but for what it is. The purpose of mushrooms is to be mushrooms, the purpose of wine is to be wine.
Things are precious before they are contributory.
To be sure, God remains the greatest good, but for all that, the world is still good in itself. Indeed, since He does not need it, its whole reason for being must lie in its own goodness; He has no use for it; only delight.
Things are precious first. God has no use for them, only delight in them. How amazing.
If Capon got it right—and it resonates so deep within me I cannot help but think so—then what is the purpose of my existence? What about your existence? What about our ministries?
Earlier today Father Michael reminded us that God made us because he wanted us. He wanted to love us. To be with us. To delight in us. God created humans simply to know us.
If this is true, then is it possible that my purpose is to first be Jerusalem? That before I am a mother, a wife, a minister, a writer, I am Me. And that I am is a delight to God just as I am?
Is it possible that God delights in my existence – Aaron’s existence, Ben’s existence, Lindsey’s existence – regardless of our usefulness to the kingdom, or to the bottom line? Is it possible that we, like mushrooms, are precious before we are contributory?
I believe that when we embrace the amazing good-news that God is loves us and delights in us, simply because we existence, that our hearts and our souls can become rooted in such a deep and abiding security, that only then are we are able to turn away from our own agendas, which are often formed from our insecurities, and turn instead towards the world’s needs.
You see, I don’t believe that God needs us. But I do believe that God wants us. Delights in us. Calls us precious. Loves us radically for no good reason that we will ever comprehend.
So no, God doesn’t need us. But the world does.
The world needs the message that life can be radically different. The world, and us, we all are radically loved. And we need to be told and reminded over and over and over.
But first, before we can proclaim this message, we have to stop worrying about whether we were worthy or not of love, and instead we must began to love the people society deems unworthy.
What if we just went out as we are – talented, untalented, smart, average, cool, dorky, – the apple of God’s eye, and loved people the way we are loved. For no good reason other than they exist?
Tonight, as part of our Liturgy we read the story of the 5 loaves and 2 fishes, In this story, we first see the disciples and Jesus attempting to go away for a respite. But the people show up anyway, and he cannot resist them. Eventually it is obvious that everyone is hungry but no one has made a dinner plan.
So the disciples come to Jesus with a problem, looking to him to fix it. And what does Christ say?
Christ says: You feed them. You figure it out.
And they do.
Why? I don’t know. But I think maybe it is because they believed that they were loved first and useful second.
A couple of passages before the feeding of the 5,000 we see Jesus commission the twelve:
The Twelve (Mark 6 MSG)
7-8 Jesus called the Twelve to him, and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority and power to deal with the evil opposition. He sent them off with these instructions:
8-9 “Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple.
10 “And no luxury inns. Get a modest place and be content there until you leave.
11 “If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.”
12-13 Then they were on the road. They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different;
Jesus commissions the most rag-tag, unimpressive group of disciples ever, and they went forth -securely rooted in his love and delight – preaching with joyful urgency that life could be radically different.
So when it comes time to feed five thousand people, Christ turns to them and says “figure it out.”
And their solution – their wacky, totally inept solution is that they bring him five fish and two loaves.
But it is enough. It is more than enough.
Because it was never about how much food they would find. It was always about believing they were loved anyway. It was about believing that no matter what they turned back up with, Christ would bless it. It was about having the courage, the humility, rooted in their identity as beloved, to go out and try.
Which brings us back to the practice of stillness and silence.
Learning to practice stillness is a gift of kindness that we can give ourselves and the world. It is a gentle loving, a balm to our weary souls, one that we may not even realize we need, that our community needs.
It is in our stillness and our silence that we are given the opportunity to stop trying to prove our worth. It is in the quiet non-productive, non-useful moments where we can bring all of our -good, bad, unpolished, over-educated, questioning, pious – selves to God and know that we will be unequivocally loved fully, simply because we exist.
And it is here, in this knowing, that we will have the security and confidence to offer up whatever we have – the loaves and fishes of our lives – our broken hearts, our worn out bodies, our cynical spirits, our desire for change, our bravest dream, – letting Christ bless it and transform it for the sake of the world.
But if we are never still, if we are never silent, how will we hear God whispering how delighted he is in our existence? If we are never still, or silent, how will we ever believe that it is not our actions or our intelligence or our talent or our service attendance numbers that causes God to love us?
God does not need us. God wants us. God does not depend on us. God delights in us.
The world needs us because the world needs to hear the joyous news that this unbelievable, radical life changing love is for everyone.
So sit in the silence and bring your loaves and fishes with you. Not because they are impressive, but because you want to share the goodness, because you want to be part of Gods restoration work in the world.
Selah.
Shalom in the Home
[image error]Hello Friends and Welcome Shalom Sistas’!
How are you?? Has 2017 treated you kindly so far? If this is your first time here I am SO excited to have you visiting, and if you are an old pal, it is so good to be together again!
I know that I have been scarce around these parts lately – the holidays, my speaking schedule, and final book edits (hurrah!) have been tugging on my apron strings, – but beginning in February I hope to revive this little corner, and get back to a more regular posting schedule.
But today I am popping in to give you some exciting news!
Beginning in March, I will become a regular co-host on the podcast Shalom in the City podcast hosted by the AMAZING Osheta Moore!
Y’all, I am so excited. Co-hosting a podcast has been on my bucket list for a couple of years now, and I am beyond honored that Osheta has invited me in to contribute to her beautiful vision of Shalom.
A vision that “believes peacemaking is the primary way to see changes in our families, neighborhoods, cities, and world. Shalom is the Hebrew word for peace with a richer fuller picture of the world at her best: flourishing, unified, and vibrantly whole. A Peacemaker, or Shalom Sista, lives everyday to see this picture realized in her context.”
On our episodes Osheta and I will be chatting about what it looks like to live out Shalom in our homes and our communities, thinking about what it means to be wholehearted families, friends, and neighbors.
You know I Iove to dig into the ways that intentional spiritual practices and home traditions can produce wholeness in our lives and the lives of those around us, and I cannot wait to go deep with Osheta and our listeners, aka the Shalom Sistas’ (and brothers!) and explore all the ways we can bring Shalom as peacemakers to those we live with and love every day.
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But, the great news doesn’t stop there – I am not the only co-host on the block! The wise and lovely Abby Perry is going to be talking about Shalom through reconciliation practices, and Cara Meredith – a Shalom in the City veteran, will continue her work as the Shalom Book Club guru. Also Osheta will be welcoming special guest into the mix and occasionally there will also be group shows. And of course Osheta, our fearless leader and woman-of-vision, will continue to push, prod and encourage us in our practices.
Beginning in March the podcast is going to a new themed-season format , which is going to help the team be extremely intentional about in our conversations. Our first theme, Hopeful Resistance, will begin by exploring what Hope looks like through the lens of Shalom, and then we will begin processing together what it means to be hopefully resistant in the face of division, defensiveness, and despair – obstacles that I know I have faced in the wake of 2016, ones I think you may have faced as well. But have faith friends, together we are always better, which is why I am so excited and honored to be a part of the Shalom community.
If you are not already familiar with Shalom in the City, please hop on over to the Shalom Sistas’ Facebook hangout page (where we are talking about Shalom daily, and where you can find all updates about the show) or to the podcast page and join in the sistahood of peace making and wholeness seeking. You will be so glad you did.
I tell you,
this is how the stars
get in your bones.
This is how the brightness
makes a home in you,
as you open to the hope that burnishes
every fractured thing it finds
and sets it shimmering,
a generous light that will not cease,
no matter how deep the darkness grows,
no matter how long the night becomes.
Jan Richardson
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
February 1, 2017
You are a Delight
What if you found out that God doesn’t need you, but instead wants you, simply because God finds you delightful?
(This is the homily I had the honor of giving at The Practice Retreat, a retreat for pastors and church leaders who are looking to go deeper into the ancient spiritual practices and gifts of the Christian tradition. The first half of the retreat was focused on spiritual practices for personal restoration and the second half was focused on spiritual practices for the restoration of the world. I gave this homily at the very intersection where we began to transition from the first to the second.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As much as I love the liturgy of the of my chosen faith tradition, my first few times leading a service left me jittery. As a participant I love the consistency, rhythm and stability that Liturgy it brings to my chaotic and ever changing life but as a leader who leans heavily on her ability to improvise, the fear of getting it wrong unnerved me from the beginning. Having grown up a Baptist preacher’s kid and then serving in ministry positions at several non-denominational churches, I have internalized the rhythm of a typical evangelical service. A song, a welcome and or prayer, more songs, some announcements, maybe another song or something artsy if the church is progressive – a skit, an interpretive dance, maybe some responsive reading… then, a sermon given with just a brief outline, another song, maybe another improvised prayer and an altar call of some sort along with a closing song, and prayer.
This kind of service I could do with my eyes closed. But learning how to lead the more structured and jam packed liturgy of the Episcopal Church was like relearning how to walk. Nothing felt recognizable or intuitive.
Different services have different structures, Morning Prayer, Noon Prayer, Evening Prayer, Eucharist Rite I, Eucharist Rite II, Healing Service, Compline, they are all a little bit the same and a little bit different. And don’t get me started on learning when to sit, when to kneel, when to stand, and how to know (if it isn’t marked, and it isn’t always marked,) when we are to read together or responsively. So many variables, so many ways to get mess up.
I had only been an official Episcopalian for a few short months, when out of necessity I was called upon to lead our weekly Wednesday night healing and prayer service (that’s right, even Episcopalians believe in the laying on of hands and orienting with oil), a service I had only witnessed once or twice.
Clutching my Evening Prayer bulletin tightly with sweaty hands I forged ahead.
I put on a confident face and plowed ahead, as we read O Gracious Light and the Psalms together, and listened to the lessons. I was just about to start the Song of Mary, the Magnificat when I heard a passionate voice call out from the pews. “Can we stop for silence and reflection?” And I realized with a start that I plowed straight through our moment of silence. I had been so intent on getting to The Next Thing in Bold, that I had overlooked the small italicized line of text that read Silence May Be Kept Here.
So we stopped. I sat down. The small congregation sat down. And there we stayed, in silence, in stillness, while I counted to sixty four times in my head, hoping that was long enough.
After the service was over I hugged Ann and thanked her for stopping me, for calling us all back to stillness. Not everyone would have had the courage to say something, and if she hadn’t I don’t know that I would have ever noticed my mistake. I probably would have spent the rest of my life barreling through that portion of the service.
Since that night I have led Evening Prayer several times. I have even reworked the service bulletin to reflect both the place where we share prayers for healing and the laying on of hands. And perhaps most importantly the place where we pause for silence is marked by bigger, bolder type. And in my copy of the bulletin it is starred, circled, and underlined. And slowly but surely, I have stopped counting to sixty four times, and now simply sit in silence and stillness until the moment passes, whenever that may be.
I am a doer. I learned early f I couldn’t be the smartest/richest/prettiest person in the room, I could at the very least be the most useful. So I became a helpful, useful person. And it turns out that I am good at it and I enjoy it. I like being useful, I love having a task, I like helping.
I like to be always on my toes, to keep moving, keep fixing, and keep managing. After all, useful people always have something to do and someone to talk to. Useful people, for all appearances, are not lonely people..
But this way of navigating the world can also be a crutch. A way to keep myself distracted and out of focus. Which is perhaps why I often keep busy by being useful. Being a helpful, busy, useful person – especially when in ministry – and is a safe thing to be. A busy, useful person like this can do a lot of good in the world, and but the flip side is that a busy useful person can also drown in their own usefulness, they can suffocate from never stopping long enough to replenish their own spiritual and physical oxygen supplies. Usefulness and stillness can be partners, or they can be enemies and for a long time, I only knew them as the latter.
We live in a culture and we belong to a faith traditions that puts a high value on Doing.
As American’s we value Getting Stuff Done.
In my chosen tradition we value activism, and service.
In other traditions the emphasis is often on programs, or multiple action packed services, while others put heavy emphasis on non-stop witnessing, or healing marathons.
And while there is nothing inherently wrong with getting stuff done, with having a strong work ethic, with striving to change the world, with finding a hundred different ways to communicate God’s love during the week, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps, in the midst of all this busyness, we are all suffocating.
We are now a society that is now counting our steps, not our stillness.
We walk laps around the kitchen island at 10 pm in order to make sure we hit our FitBit goal for the day, while our prayer books and bibles stay unopened on our nightstands, while every member of our family stares into a screen when gathered around the table.
In these hard, strange, dark, confusing, and divisive times, the temptation to stay busy and distracted is a powerful one, and I think we may have forgotten how to sit in the heat of the day and wait for the Lord. How to sit in stillness at the feet of Love.
Maybe it is now, when the world seems to be coming apart at the seams, that we should trade in some of our Doing – counter-intuitive as it is – and begin to practice Being. Waiting. Sitting. Silence. Solitude. Stillness.
Stillness is not the same thing as relaxing or being lazy, as Martha suggested of Mary, all those years ago. Being still, isn’t just a physical act. It is an internal act as well. Stillness and Silence are about being present. About having the humility to say “this isn’t all about me or what I can do or what I can say.” The spiritual practices of Stillness and Silence is about cultivating an awareness within ourselves, opening ourselves up to what is beyond us – beyond our abilities to fix, or mend, or solve, or do. Practicing stillness and silence allows us to open ourselves – our hearts, our eyes, and our ears – to the messages of love and new life that God is sending us, in whatever forms they arrive.
But in order to practice true stillness, in order to get to the place of humility in which we can say “this moment is not about me or what I can say or what I can do”, and to instead open ourselves up to the Spirits leading, I think we have to first believe that we are loved.
Really, truly loved.
Not loved for what we can do or say or change or make happen. But instead loved simply because we exist.
In his marvelous book, The Supper of the Lamb, Father Robert Farrar Capon writes the following:
The world exists, not for what it means but for what it is. The purpose of mushrooms is to be mushrooms, the purpose of wine is to be wine.
Things are precious before they are contributory.
To be sure, God remains the greatest good, but for all that, the world is still good in itself. Indeed, since He does not need it, its whole reason for being must lie in its own goodness; He has no use for it; only delight.
Things are precious first. God has no use for them, only delight in them. How amazing.
If Capon got it right—and it resonates so deep within me I cannot help but think so—then what is the purpose of my existence? What about your existence? What about our ministries?
Earlier today Father Michael reminded us that God made us because he wanted us. He wanted to love us. To be with us. To delight in us. God created humans simply to know us.
If this is true, then is it possible that my purpose is to first be Jerusalem? That before I am a mother, a wife, a minister, a writer, I am Me. And that I am is a delight to God just as I am?
Is it possible that God delights in my existence – Aaron’s existence, Ben’s existence, Lindsey’s existence – regardless of our usefulness to the kingdom, or to the bottom line? Is it possible that we, like mushrooms, are precious before we are contributory?
I believe that when we embrace the amazing good-news that God is loves us and delights in us, simply because we existence, that our hearts and our souls can become rooted in such a deep and abiding security, that only then are we are able to turn away from our own agendas, which are often formed from our insecurities, and turn instead towards the world’s needs.
You see, I don’t believe that God needs us. But I do believe that God wants us. Delights in us. Calls us precious. Loves us radically for no good reason that we will ever comprehend.
So no, God doesn’t need us. But the world does.
The world needs the message that life can be radically different. The world, and us, we all are radically loved. And we need to be told and reminded over and over and over.
But first, before we can proclaim this message, we have to stop worrying about whether we were worthy or not of love, and instead we must began to love the people society deems unworthy.
What if we just went out as we are – talented, untalented, smart, average, cool, dorky, – the apple of God’s eye, and loved people the way we are loved. For no good reason other than they exist?
Tonight, as part of our Liturgy we read the story of the 5 loaves and 2 fishes, In this story, we first see the disciples and Jesus attempting to go away for a respite. But the people show up anyway, and he cannot resist them. Eventually it is obvious that everyone is hungry but no one has made a dinner plan.
So the disciples come to Jesus with a problem, looking to him to fix it. And what does Christ say?
Christ says: You feed them. You figure it out.
And they do.
Why? I don’t know. But I think maybe it is because they believed that they were loved first and useful second.
A couple of passages before the feeding of the 5,000 we see Jesus commission the twelve:
The Twelve (Mark 6 MSG)
7-8 Jesus called the Twelve to him, and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority and power to deal with the evil opposition. He sent them off with these instructions:
8-9 “Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple.
10 “And no luxury inns. Get a modest place and be content there until you leave.
11 “If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.”
12-13 Then they were on the road. They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different;
Jesus commissions the most rag-tag, unimpressive group of disciples ever, and they went forth -securely rooted in his love and delight – preaching with joyful urgency that life could be radically different.
So when it comes time to feed five thousand people, Christ turns to them and says “figure it out.”
And their solution – their wacky, totally inept solution is that they bring him five fish and two loaves.
But it is enough. It is more than enough.
Because it was never about how much food they would find. It was always about believing they were loved anyway. It was about believing that no matter what they turned back up with, Christ would bless it. It was about having the courage, the humility, rooted in their identity as beloved, to go out and try.
Which brings us back to the practice of stillness and silence.
Learning to practice stillness is a gift of kindness that we can give ourselves and the world. It is a gentle loving, a balm to our weary souls, one that we may not even realize we need, that our community needs.
It is in our stillness and our silence that we are given the opportunity to stop trying to prove our worth. It is in the quiet non-productive, non-useful moments where we can bring all of our -good, bad, unpolished, over-educated, questioning, pious – selves to God and know that we will be unequivocally loved fully, simply because we exist.
And it is here, in this knowing, that we will have the security and confidence to offer up whatever we have – the loaves and fishes of our lives – our broken hearts, our worn out bodies, our cynical spirits, our desire for change, our bravest dream, – letting Christ bless it and transform it for the sake of the world.
But if we are never still, if we are never silent, how will we hear God whispering how delighted he is in our existence? If we are never still, or silent, how will we ever believe that it is not our actions or our intelligence or our talent or our service attendance numbers that causes God to love us?
God does not need us. God wants us. God does not depend on us. God delights in us.
The world needs us because the world needs to hear the joyous news that this unbelievable, radical life changing love is for everyone.
So sit in the silence and bring your loaves and fishes with you. Not because they are impressive, but because you want to share the goodness, because you want to be part of Gods restoration work in the world.
Selah.
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Filed under: Blog Tagged: Faith, featured, sermon
January 19, 2017
Shalom in the Home! A Special Announcement
Hello Friends and Welcome Shalom Sistas’!
How are you?? Has 2017 treated you kindly so far? If this is your first time here I am SO excited to have you visiting, and if you are an old pal, it is so good to be together again!
I know that I have been scarce around these parts lately – the holidays, my speaking schedule, and final book edits (hurrah!) have been tugging on my apron strings, – but beginning in February I hope to revive this little corner, and get back to a more regular posting schedule.
But today I am popping in to give you some exciting news!
Beginning in March, I will become a regular co-host on the podcast Shalom in the City podcast hosted by the AMAZING Osheta Moore!
Y’all, I am so excited. Co-hosting a podcast has been on my bucket list for a couple of years now, and I am beyond honored that Osheta has invited me in to contribute to her beautiful vision of Shalom.
A vision that “believes peacemaking is the primary way to see changes in our families, neighborhoods, cities, and world. Shalom is the Hebrew word for peace with a richer fuller picture of the world at her best: flourishing, unified, and vibrantly whole. A Peacemaker, or Shalom Sista, lives everyday to see this picture realized in her context.”
On our episodes Osheta and I will be chatting about what it looks like to live out Shalom in our homes and our communities, thinking about what it means to be wholehearted families, friends, and neighbors.
You know I Iove to dig into the ways that intentional spiritual practices and home traditions can produce wholeness in our lives and the lives of those around us, and I cannot wait to go deep with Osheta and our listeners, aka the Shalom Sistas’ (and brothers!) and explore all the ways we can bring Shalom as peacemakers to those we live with and love every day.
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But, the great news doesn’t stop there – I am not the only co-host on the block! The wise and lovely Abby Perry is going to be talking about Shalom through reconciliation practices, and Cara Meredith – a Shalom in the City veteran, will continue her work as the Shalom Book Club guru. Also Osheta will be welcoming special guest into the mix and occasionally there will also be group shows. And of course Osheta, our fearless leader and woman-of-vision, will continue to push, prod and encourage us in our practices.
Beginning in March the podcast is going to a new themed-season format , which is going to help the team be extremely intentional about in our conversations. Our first theme, Hopeful Resistance, will begin by exploring what Hope looks like through the lens of Shalom, and then we will begin processing together what it means to be hopefully resistant in the face of division, defensiveness, and despair – obstacles that I know I have faced in the wake of 2016, ones I think you may have faced as well. But have faith friends, together we are always better, which is why I am so excited and honored to be a part of the Shalom community.
If you are not already familiar with Shalom in the City, please hop on over to the Shalom Sistas’ Facebook hangout page (where we are talking about Shalom daily, and where you can find all updates about the show) or to the podcast page and join in the sistahood of peace making and wholeness seeking. You will be so glad you did.
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I tell you,
this is how the stars
get in your bones.
This is how the brightness
makes a home in you,
as you open to the hope that burnishes
every fractured thing it finds
and sets it shimmering,
a generous light that will not cease,
no matter how deep the darkness grows,
no matter how long the night becomes.
Jan Richardson
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And come back and visit soon – there will be more big news coming in February!
Much love –
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Filed under: Blog Tagged: featured, Shalom in the City
January 11, 2017
Hope is the thing with feathers…
It has become a family tradition that Sweet Man and I take the boys – at some point during the Christmas season – to see an Epic film.. The Hobbit, Star Wars, etc. This year we went to see Rogue One, and like so many people, I was taken with the phrase
“Rebellion’s are Built on Hope”.
Why? I think because right now, more than ever, I am in need of hope, and I am in need of some fire in my belly -I guess I am in need of some hopeful rebellion. That thing that propels me forward, to step out and step up and to fight for what I believe to be good and holy and worthy. To risk looking silly and to do it anyway – to fight and to hope all at the same time.
Two Lenten season’s ago I preached a sermon on hope, one where I wondered – what if hope isn’t about waiting, but instead is about risk? About dancing instead of sitting…?
You can listen to my sermon HERE or you can read it below. Either way, I hope you will join me in taking up an active and fierce hope, a mighty fight for the good and the loving.
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Hope is the Thing – Jerusalem Jackson Greer
St. Peter’s Church, Conway AR March 1, 2015
Hope is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
These are the opening lines of a famous poem by Emily Dickinson. You probably have heard or seen this poem recently thanks to Pinterest and the current trend to “put a bird on it.” You can find that first line, “Hope is the thing with feathers”, stenciled on any and all decorative items that stand still – pillows, posters, coffee mugs, canvas bags… Everywhere I turn I see Emily’s words. And I wonder, what she would make of this? What would she think of those few lines being taken and used for decorative purposes?
Because that is what her words have been reduced to – pretty decorations. And if one were to stop there, at that first line, at the bit about the feathers, one might be tempted to think that Emily is comparing hope to something that is fragile, something that is delicate and dainty. Something that is more decorative than functional.
But if you are a bird watcher, a scientist, a hunter, an inquisitive child, or a farmer then you are well aware that feathers are anything but dainty. You know -as I am sure that Ms. Dickinson knew – that feathers are incredibly strong and yet are incredibly flexible. That they both support lift and forward movement.
You might even be aware that feathers also aid the behavior of the bird within its environment and its lifestyle, and therefore are unique to each type of bird. Feathers that support the soaring flight of an eagle have a much different role than the feathers that protect a backyard chicken.
So if Hope is the thing with feathers as Ms. Dickinson eludes , then could it follow that Hope is also all these things?
If Hope is the thing with feathers, and feathers are incredibly strong and incredibly flexible, then perhaps that is how our Hope should be as well.
If feathers are not mere decoration, but instead they are specialized tools, uniquely designed and calibrated to help their particular owner thrive, then perhaps we should think of Hope as more than a bit of spiritual fluff for the soul.
What would it mean for our lives if we were to think of Hope in these terms? What would it mean to our hearts and our faith if we understood Hope to be something that is both strong and flexible – as something that bends and is not rigid?
What would it mean to walk on the earth with the understanding that Hope is something that can both support lift and forward movement in our lives if we will let it?
And what about the lines in the poem:
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
Does this mean that Hope never stops? That it is a tune deep in our souls that hums along, despite all logic?
In today’s readings we heard about Abraham and God’s covenant with him. We read of Abraham’s “hope against hope” in God’s promise and how Abraham’s faith grew – when – as The Message translation puts it – “he plunged into” God’s promise.
Reading today’s passages and those that come before and after them you will see as I did that Abraham’s response to God’s covenant was not passive. It was active. He was filled with hope – a hope that hummed an endless tune perhaps – and his response to that hope was to act. And it was in that combination – the combination of hope and action – that Abraham’s faith grew.
Abraham accepted the invitation. He decided to dance to the tune of hope inside him. He allowed his hope to lift and propel him forward.
Abraham stepped out in faith.
He showed up.
He did the work.
He slept with this wife.
Which is what was needed to fulfill the promise.
After all God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation, and that his wife Sarah would birth the first child of that nation. And God didn’t promise or offer an immaculate conception this go round, which left things firmly in Abraham’s court.
If Abraham’s hope had been rigid, or if he had thought of it as spiritual fluff, or as pretty words on a pillow, I am not sure he would have acted as he did.
Perhaps he would have sat around at the bar on Saturday nights saying “Well sure I hope this works out, but come on y’all I am old! My wife is old! Maybe this is all just a metaphor. Maybe God means I will be the spiritual father of a great nation. I don’t know. I will just wait and see. Surely he doesn’t mean I should, you know “do it.” Not at my age….I bet he means that I should just think of myself as the father of a nation…”
But thankfully instead Abraham heard the endless tune of hope in God’s promise and he decided to act on it. He decided to dance. And this is where his Faith blossomed.
In Emily’s poem I hear the same sort of choice and recognition that I hear in the story of Abraham. There is a recognition that Hope is there, alive inside us. And I believe that God has placed a Hope inside each of us. But the challenge and the question is this: Do we act on that hope? Do we accept it’s invitation to dance? Do we allow it to lift us and move us forward? I hope so.
Because I think that just maybe that is where our faith is born. That maybe Faith is Hope in flight. Maybe Faith is dancing to the tune that hope sings.
18 years ago, just two months and a few days before I was to be married, on this very day, my parents home – along with many others – was destroyed in a Tornado that ripped across this state. The tornado came in the mid-morning, when many were still sipping their first cup of coffee on a lazy Saturday morning. When my father stepped out onto their porch and heard the tell-tale sound of an approaching freight train he knew it was time to take cover. He grabbed my middle sister, the only child at home that day, and my mother and shoved them into an interior closet. On the way to the closet my mother grabbed two things – her bible and the material for my bridesmaids dresses. If she hadn’t it is almost certain they would have wound up in a tree in Searcy or Bald Knob. As the “freight train” passed overhead my father held the door shut and prayed over them all. When they walked out of that closet their lives would be forever changed by the wreckage that storm left behind, and the only portion of ceiling that remained intact was the square above that closet.
For years we have laughed about my mother grabbing that fabric, and I have often wondered if she would done things differently if she had known the damage the storm would wreck on her home and her life. But to me, as a young bride whose parents were a little iffy on me tying the knot before I finished college, it spoke volumes. In that split moment decision of hers I saw her hope for me and for my life. And in her actions I also saw faith – Her faith that I would get married, that we would need those dresses, and most of all that my wedding – and my marriage – was worthy of protection. In that one action my mother told me more about her love for me than she probably knows.
Eighteen years later I am still married, and my parents live in a house they built on the same bit of land where the tornado’d house stood.
While the hard work of rebuilding the house eventually came to an end, the hard work of building a healthy marriage continues. Both both – the rebuilding of my parent’s life, and my beginning a new one with Nathan were rooted in Hope. A hope that as it turns out was strong, flexible, and calibrated to helping us each thrive. A hope that sang a tune that only we could dance to in our own ways, our faith growing with each step we willingly took.
In the church I think we tend to put Hope more in the Advent camp. We think of Hope as a passive waiting for something lovely and life changing to happen to us. But the kind of Hope that Abraham exhibited is a Hope that fits more in the wild unknown desert of Lent. The kind of hope that Abraham lived out, is the kind of hope that keeps me married on those days when all seem futile, it is the kind of hope that withstands the storms of the second stanza of Emily’s poem. It is an active not passive hope. It is full of leaps and risk and changing plans and forward movement. It is strong and it wants to thrive.
To everything there is a season. Some seasons are about waiting, and some seasons are about going. In Lent we go into the wilderness looking for our faith to grow in ways that we cannot predict, but we don’t have to go in passively. We can go in dancing.
Amen.
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Filed under: Blog Tagged: Faith, featured, sermons
December 10, 2016
Longing for Hope: The Bittersweet Meaning of Advent
What if I told you that being sad, or filled with heartache at Christmas is not a failure of belief, but instead a holy invitation to longing?
What if I sad that bittersweet is the perfect word that sums up Advent?
Would you feel relief? Acceptance? Freedom? A glimpse at wonder and wholeness?
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(all the expressions and gestures)
Last weekend, this was the message I had the honor of sharing with The Practice Tribe.
A message of bittersweet hope, of deep soul longing, of prophets and wilderness and holding both sadness and joy in the same heart. A message of freedom and wonder, of miracles and weariness.
You can listen to the message on The Practice Podcast, but I have also added an approximation of what I said below. Not the exact transcript – because honestly, I just couldn’t help going off book a bit – but a general idea of what was said.
Longing for Hope * A Message for The Practice Tribe * December 4, 2016 * Chicago, IL * Advent Two, Year 1
The thing I love most about Advent is the heartbreak.
Of course it hasn’t always been this way. For years I tried to jolly away the ache, the deep longing that sits at the bottom of my heart, the heavy anchor that is woven from the fibers of sorrow and broken expectations along with the ribbons and bows of simpler times, purer joys. For years I was convinced that I could overcome this holiday blight, this shortcoming of belief, by giving the right gifts, making the perfect cookies, and sending the prettiest card. I believed that I could bury, deep beneath tinsel and candy canes, the gnawing suspicion that something was unfinished. If only I could dress up my fear – the fear that all the magic of Christmas had disappeared for good – with more decorations and louder twenty-four-hour carols, then maybe I could, by sheer force of will, again experience Christmas as the most wonderful time of the year.
But no matter how festive things looked on the outside, no matter how great my efforts, I could never escape the strange sadness that wound its way tightly around my heart in the early days of December. Each year, shortly after Thanksgiving, I would find myself in line somewhere (usually Target), buying something as mundane as wrapping paper and light bulbs when suddenly my breath would catch in my throat, and a ten-ton elephant would be sitting on my chest, making my hands shake as I struggled to pay the cashier.
Later that same day, or week, panic would suddenly rise up inside my chest, threatening to burst from my lungs in a full-force sob as I fixed another cup of homemade hot cocoa for my boys. Despite my annual cheerful attempts to muffle the heavy ache that rested just below my breastbone the truth is, as much as I love all the hubbub (and I do love it, truly), the Advent–Christmastide season is, as the character Phillip in the 1994 movie Mixed Nuts so succinctly put it, “a time when you look at your life through a magnifying glass and whatever you don’t have feels overwhelming. Being alone is so much lonelier at Christmas. Being sad is so much sadder at Christmas.”
Truer words have never been said.
I know that Joy to the World is a much-loved Christmas carol, but to me the writer of O Holy Night put it best when he said, “the weary world rejoices.” I don’t know about you, but the weary world is the one I live in, and the weariest time of all seems to be Advent and Christmas. Weary from fighting the urge to keep up with the Joneses. Weary from juggling fractured families and tender emotions. Weary from working too hard and feeling as if we are still just barely scraping by each month. Weary from raising a family and doing twenty loads of laundry each week. Frankly I am often weary of being weary, of not knowing if this is the year things fall apart, or if somehow, we will all make it again to New Years.
Over the past two decades I have weathered many Advents in a state of unknowing. I have entered Advent seasons wondering if my marriage would be still be intact at the New Year, if the central heat would be on for Christmas, if I would have a job in January, if we would be able to afford food—let alone gifts— during November and December. I have lost friendships and a church family and a job during an Advent season. Each of those Advents travels with me into the next. They are like the paper chain garlands my kids make a school. Each loop interlocked with the next loop, connected.
Each loop reminding me of both the hurt and the healing of those seasons as I pull the garland back out to hang on my tree once again.
So here we are again. Another Advent is here, another is Christmas coming. The holiday season is doing it’s best to once again highlight whatever is most broken in our lives; our families, our bank accounts, our dreams, our friendships, our politics and most importantly, our hearts.
When things get hard I have noticed that people respond in one of two ways – it’s all Fight or Flight. And this time of year is no exception. You can usually identify the fighters by those who try a little too hard to glitz over the broken parts of their lives and hearts. These are the ones who will tough it out and put on a big, static, happy face. despite the desperation they feel in their hearts to be whole again. They will decorate the tree until you can barely see green behind all the ribbons and ornaments, they will buy too many gifts hoping to find the Christmas spirit in the perfect gift, and they will wear themselves out with the frenzy they create all around them as they attempt to create a perfect Pinterest holiday, and when asked how they are doing will always reply “I am fine!” Fighters are hard to identify because they look happy, and they sound happy, but underneath all the ribbon and bows and twinkle lights, it is a different story, there is an underlying cry to rest, to acknowledge what is hurting in their lives.
The flight-ers are the easier group to pick out. They are the Scrooges, The ones who dismiss Christmas as a silly commercialization. They bah humbug all attempts at celebration and merriment, and tend to avoid decorations and iced cookies altogether. Instead of joining in they opt out. Every time. But often even the flighters are more than just grumps. They are also brokenhearted souls, in need of an authentic Christmas spirit, and not just a dressed up, plastic-smile attempt at one.
Do you see yourself in these 2 descriptions? I know I do. I have occupied both of these attitudes. Often I swing between them, creating a tornado of emotions that ends with me in a puddle of inconsolable tears on Christmas day.
For years my husband said it wasn’t really Christmas until I cried, which of course made me cry.
But what if I told you there was a third option? A middle way of being? A way of entering into Advent, of celebrating Christmas, that required no armor? No walls of fake tinsel or grumpy demeanor between us and the world? A way to hold both our sadness and our joy in one hand?
What if I told you that this was always the intention of this season?
The church year, the liturgical calendar, this very well thought out and deliberate rhythm set for us by our faith ancestors, does not begin with the Big Event. With Christ birth, or even with his death on the cross.
Instead it begins with the preparation. With waiting. With a longing.
The church year does not begin with Christ coming, but with our longing for Christ. With our longing for something worth hoping for. With our need. With our desire to be whole/
So why then do we think, that on Black Friday, we are all supposedly to be magically happy and filled with Christmas cheer, singing loudly for all to hear? We aren’t! Nothing has happened yet. Except for this. We begin the year with a tiny, almost inaudible promise.
We begin our faith year by trying to hear the till small voice that says, hold on, hope is coming.
Advent – the season between the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day is an ancient season that is built completely around the idea that we should long for hope, that we should cry out for it, that our hearts should break over and over in desperation for it.
Otherwise, what good is Christmas itself?
What is the point of Christ coming, if we are not aware of how much we need him?
This is why we read Isaiah in Advent, this is why we sing about captive Israel and a weary world.
Because Advent starts in the dark, in our longing, in our heartbreak, in our dissatisfaction and loneliness and loss.
In Advent we all become captive Israel. We all become exiles. We all become foreigners in a foreign land, being led by the light of hope.
And this is just as it should be.
Because if we are not exiles now, then what significance does having Love come down to walk among us carry?
And so, YES.
Advent is a time when you look at your life through a magnifying glass and whatever you don’t have feels overwhelming. When being alone is so much lonelier. When being sad is so much sadder.
But let’s not run from these things, or hide from them, or stuff them under packages and bows. Instead let us name them, and then name the hope that we are waiting for.
Let us put them under the tree alongside a radical, ridiculously, fools hope that Love will come and walk among us, change us, and the world.
Advent, when you get right down to it, isn’t some fluffy kids holiday full of chocolate and presents – though I do enjoy both.
Advent is a season of defiance. It is about finding yourself in impossible circumstances – such as being an unwed single mother giving birth in a barn – and choosing to hope your guts out anyway.
It’s about choosing to risk your heart and believe against all signs to the contrary that love, in the end, will win the day. That the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon our heads;
We shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
So my question for us this year is this: What if this Advent we didn’t give in to the temptation to Fight or Flight? What if, instead, this Christmas, we leaned into the longing? Into the hope?
What if we, like Mary on the dusty road to Bethlehem, gathered up all our hopes and our fears, and carried them forward – to the coming of Christ – just as we are- with our broken hearts, our broken families, our broken bank accounts and our broken dreams?
What if, this Advent we didn’t pretend – either to be fine or to not care?
What if we just entered Advent as we are, where we are?
What if we leave here this evening living out the words of Isaiah – as people who have walked in darkness but who have seen a great light? And what if we let that light lead us , flicker by flicker, to a place of hope, to a place where we rest in the knowledge that God is with us, and that whatever else Christmas is, it is the coming of hope, of love, of restoration. And what if we did this together? Reminding each other that sometimes waiting and longing are hard, both because of how much we hope for and for what we fear.
*COOKIE PRACTICE TIME* ———————————————————————————————————————————–
Tonight we are going to step into this unknowing a bit. Into the twin emotions of fear and hope.
A little later on this evening I am going to share with you a little kit for a home practice that will help you travel the road of Advent with intention. Some of the practices that will be included will be ones that require you to take a risk. To risk being awkward or imperfect. To risk seeing and being seen.
Now, I know that once you guys take the garland kits home you could very well throw them in your junk drawer and never use them, or you could take one look at one of the prompts and say “no no no.” So tonight, while we have you captive here, we are going to go ahead and practice, together, one of the prompts so that when you do this at home – with a neighbor or your family or friends, you will be ready and prepared.
Before we get started I want to say one thing about Spiritual Practices. There is a reason they are called Practices and not Perfections.
We are all bad at them in the beginning.
Case in point, my family has been observing Advent at home with an Advent Wreath for 10 years. This is the first year it wasn’t in some way awkward. So take heart people – these things are awkward for all of us.
So with that in mind we are going to step into a practice tonight, with courage and awkwardness.
At this point in the service I had everyone in the room look under their chair. Half of the room had a package with two cookies, wrapped in cellophane under their chair. The other half of the room didn’t. Each person with a cookie bag, had to go and find a stranger in the room to share their other cookie with. Inside the bag was a prompt that said:
Cookie giver: “Christmas is hard for me because _____________. I thought it might be hard for you as well, so I brought you a cookie.”
Cookie receiver: “Thank you. Christmas is hard for me too because _____________.”
After sharing why the holidays are hard consider praying for each other.
Now let me just say, that this practice, this cookie – soul sharing experiment, could have completely flopped. In fact when I told my husband Nathan my idea he said – with completely love “that sounds horrible!” But I had faith in The Practice Tribe, and their leadership had faith in me, and so I will forever be grateful for both, because it worked. It worked SO well. Before I knew it people all over the room were sharing cookies and sharing heartache, and giving each other courage and permission to hold both sadness and joy in the same heart, laughing, crying, praying, cookie crumbs falling all over the floor. It was beautiful and amazing.
After a few minutes we gathered back together. Some of us remaining where we were, with our new friends, some of us moving back to our seats, and I closed my time with the words below.
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A very wise woman, in her 2010 book Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way, wrote: “When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow.” This is the essence of Advent to me. When it is sweet, I am to say “thank you” and celebrate, and when it is less than sweet, I will still say “thank you” and I will do my best to grow. Because honestly, between the parties and the presents and the decorating and holly jolliness of it all, I have no energy left for pretending that everything always has been and always will be fine.
Advent is hard, and it often leaves us undone. Pretending that we need anything other than holy healing and redemption is a lie. Of course Advent is bittersweet!
Of course it is weary and raw and emotional. It began that way, with the words of an angel to an unwed teenage girl, words that changed her life and ours. And so like Mary, traveling a dirty, dusty road to Bethlehem, Advent is when we wait in utter anticipation that one will come who will save us and change the world. One who will right wrongs, bind up wounds, wipe away tears. We will wait for him because we have reached the end of our rope and we cannot save anyone, let alone ourselves.
It is now, at Advent, that we are given the chance to suspend all expectation for the entire season and instead to revel in the mystery; to hold both sadness and joy, sorrow and hope, disappointment and peace in the same heart and to wait for the night when the world will, and does, begin again.
Amen
At this point in the service, I explained the purpose and practice of my Christmas Countdown Advent Garland from A Homemade Year.
The team had made up Garland kits, and everyone was invited to take one home, and to engage with the daily prompts – t be it a scripture reading or a community action or a moment of reflection.
If you would like to make your own Christmas Countdown Garland and dig a little deeper into the next two weeks of Advent, there are two options.
First, you can go over to Big Picture Classes, sign-up for a free trial, and take my online class on how I make them.
Or you can download the basic template and instructions here that I used with The Practice here: advent-countdown-printable
And remember what I told my friends in Chicago – crafts are not just for kids! These were written specifically with adults in mind as well.
This Advent I hope that you will find a way to hold your sadness and your joy in the same heart. That you will not worry that your heartache is a sign of unbelief, but instead embrace it as the holy invitation to long for the Messiah, to long for new beginnings, for hope, for a Love that comes to walk among us.
Wishing you peace and tenderness this season-
J
Filed under: Faith, Fete Tagged: A Homemade Year, Advent, featured, sermons
