First Sunday of Advent

John 3:30


It's an awful moment when you realize that the hero, the main character in the drama isn't you. I thought that type of moment was going to take center stage in the movie The Matrix. At one point, Neo, who we've been led to believe is the hero, the main character, the chosen one, goes to see the Oracle—a woman who can see who a person truly is, the one who can tell us if Neo is, in fact, the one. Surprisingly, at this moment, she says to the expected-hero, "Nope, sorry, you're not him." And while the movie doesn't play out the way I'd hoped it might, it got me thinking about when that moment came in my own life.


Maybe it was from reading too many comic books and myths, but I always wanted to be the hero. I kept hoping that one day the great quest would fall into my hands or that, in a moment of crisis, I'd know that my moment had come and I could step forward to be who I was born to be. I got used to thinking of myself as someone special.


For me, the awful moment didn't come in one scene. No prophetess looked me in the eye and told me that I wasn't the golden boy anymore. No, I guess, for me, it was more like John's story—one day I looked up, noticed that something had changed, and realized that I was on the decrease. The story was no longer going to follow my adventures.


Reading John's speech, he sounds so content. He sounds like a man who's accepted his role. He sounds almost joyful. How he did that I have no idea; because, I'm not ready to decrease. And when I look around at work and realize that someone else occupies the role of departmental hero—the one who learns so fast, gets things done so quickly, is the "golden boy" who can (as I once seemed to) do no wrong, I cannot look with joy upon their increase.


I suppose there's a lesson in all this about being grateful with whatever role I have to play. The story, after all, is not about me but about Christ. Maybe John got that and that's why he was able to get out of the way and not mope and lament that everyone who used to crowd around him with that look in their eyes were now hanging around someone else. Perhaps I just need to get over my own childhood dreams of being Frodo or Harry Potter or Spider-Man and accept my place in the background as a bit player in the greater story that God is telling.


Or maybe I'm being taught that heroics aren't like the movies portray them. Because, it feels like, saying what John said, accepting that awful moment with such grace, may have taken a hero.


Help me to accept myself, my role whatever it may be in serving you.

Christ the King Sunday

Around this time of year I begin to feel pulled in two different emotional directions. On the one hand, I'm excited that in a few days we'll crank up our collection of Christmas music, put up our decorations, and enjoy the fact that the holly-jolly time of year has come once again. But, at the same time, I'm a little sad. The few CDs that are marked to be played only in November will soon be stowed away, for another year. And as much as I love the fun and activity of December, I have equally grown to love the quiet weeks before Thanksgiving when night falls early and it seems the holiday season will go on and on.


In the midst of this time comes Christ the King Sunday (or, if you want less masculine and medieval language the Reign of Christ Sunday). It's a rather new, liturgically speaking, day in the calendar. One that, it seems to me, most people are still trying to put a finger upon. Not to say that I have. But as it rolls around, it's a day that blends rather well with how I feel both about the season of the year and the season of life I'm currently living through.


Right after Thanksgiving this year we plunge once again into Advent—a season that celebrates not just waiting but anticipation. We look forward not just to Christmas, but to that future advent. Something (someone) is coming, we know. Something new and wonderful and life changing (which means it's probably not something you'll find at a Black Friday sale) is drawing near. It's something that we've long been waiting for and, man-oh-man it's nearly here.


But this Sunday and the week that follows isn't yet in the Advent season. It's still Thanksgiving time which is about what is. It's about the right now including the people (and animals) who are a part of that now. It's about where we are in life, what we're doing. It's a time to look around and be thankful for it all.


That should be easy for me. With, as the prayer says, the "loving care" that surrounds me, I should be able to bask in this quiet present rather than want to rush on to the breathless anticipation that comes when the long wait is nearly over. I should be taking in the moment rather than looking toward the eastern horizon for a glimpse of what's on its way. Because, I should be able to see that what is coming is wonderful, yes. But that it is no more wonderful than what has come and what is.


This Sunday, to me, we are called to remember that Jesus has already been placed above every name. It's a day (and a week following) that, in the midst of my beginning to look toward that future redemption of all things, I must also turn my eyes to look around and see that redemption is already happening. It's a day to remember that even in the period of waiting, when things seem like they'll never change; there is a moment that contains its own joys and, I suppose, its own piece of redemption.


And it's a day to remember that even as I wait I cannot forget to be thankful for this moment that not so long ago I was waiting for with anticipation.


Thank you for the moment.

Second Sunday in November

There's a Rush song—"Ghost of a Chance"—that discusses the various twists and turns of life, all the different avenues our choices have taken us. It's a song that makes me think about the strange avenues I've walked down, the many bizarre paths that, somehow, led to a moment a decade ago when I sat across from the love of my life in a Chinese restaurant. And while November always makes me think about that long-ago-but-yesterday time, it's not just the big anniversary year that turns my thoughts back then.


I've hinted here and there in these writings that we're going through one of those transition points in our life. I finished seminary in the spring, we moved, started new jobs, and, ever since, have been unsure what the next ten years of our life together may hold in store.


Lots of people find times like this exciting. I don't. I hate, despise even, these sorts of times. It's as if I've rushed across town, fighting ten kinds of traffic, just to get somewhere on time to find the person behind the desk asking me to sign in and take a seat. Oh, and no, they have no idea how long my wait will be.


It's in these times that all the doors taken and those left closed (or those locked tight) come to mind. I begin to wonder if I did the right thing here. Did I make the right choice? Should I have taken that path instead of this one? Am I lost or, if I've taken some sort of wrong turn, can I find my way back?


These thoughts have plagued me for months. Now, here in November, I find myself trying to be thankful for the people, places, and things in my life. And, you guessed it; I'm having a little trouble being thankful for the waiting room within which we've found ourselves. I'm struggling to say thank you for this blind alley, the one that either leads nowhere or, when we finally make our way back to the road, will turn out to be miles away from where
we want to be. Is there anything to be thankful for? If I'm lost and wandering, doomed to stumble around for another thirty-odd years in the wilderness, is that really something for which to be grateful?


The irony of the moment, of this time of year, is that even as I think about where I am, how I have no idea what's next and struggle with hope that something is coming, I look over and see the girl I had to work up the courage to ask to lunch and then to dinner. And I remember a job—like now—that I wasn't thrilled with, long years of night school ahead, and no real plan for the next year, much less years, of my life.


And I remember that I had no idea that my whole life, my whole world was about to change.


One-who-will-be, thank you that I don't know what tomorrow brings.

First Sunday in November

There's a prayer I like to read each day during November. While reading it aloud a year or two ago, a friend of mine remarked on a line that offers thanks for the "failures and disappointments" we encounter. "I'm not there yet," she said. Yeah, me neither. But I get the nagging feeling I probably ought to work at getting "there.'


Neither disappointment nor failure conjures up feelings of thankfulness within me. And, if it's okay with you, I'd like to take this week to explore them. Why? Well, if you're like me, you're looking at those two words and not seeing a lot of gratefulness. (And if you're not like me…well, you can always get started on Christmas shopping). Plus, if I truly believe that God can redeem anything, I suppose I should even be thankful for the closed doors and the life that hasn't turned out like I planned.


Tied up with the feeling of disappointment are expectations, which always get me in trouble. If I'm really expecting the new Connie Willis book for Christmas but don't see it after every present has been opened, then I'm going to be disappointed. Now I'm not at the point of saying at the close of the day, "Oh thank you God that I did not get that book," but I can see not being all upset about things. There's always next year.


But while expectations play a part, sometimes the expectations are more hope than anticipation. Such as, I had hoped that after finishing my undergraduate and seminary degrees my life would be different. I thought that this awful feeling of wandering around lost would finally dissipate. I believed that my life would have a sense of purpose, and I'd rise up every morning to pursue a calling rather than drag myself into the cold to go to a job. I hoped my life after these experiences would not be like my life before them.


So when I look around in my work day and see the same surroundings I did before or when the past few years of my life seem like an interesting diversion that, like a ride on the midway, has come to an end, I feel disappointed. In fact, my disappointment threatens—more than I'll ever actually admit—to turn into despair. And I've no idea how to say thank you for such a god-awful feeling.


Yet, for some reason, I still feel that maybe I should be thankful for what I feel. I don't mean should because of some obligation, but because of me and, more importantly, my relationship with the Divine. Maybe saying thank you for the times when things didn't turn out as expected or hoped for is just a way of acknowledging that I don't know everything, particularly how my life is supposed to turn out.


Or maybe it's just a way of saying I love you to a friend who's stuck close when the path did not lead where perhaps either of us was expecting to go.


My friend, my companion thank you for not abandoning me even if things did not turn out as we'd planned.

Fifth Sunday in October

I Samuel 28:20-25


My wife and I, driving home the other night, were talking about trick-or-treating. She was sharing her thoughts on the difference between Linus and his well-tended pumpkin patch (which I wrote about last week) and the others in the Peanuts gang who went out in costume, taking joy in the act of receiving. That, after all, is what trick-or-treating is: a celebration of receiving.


This, along with Saul's refusal of hospitality, caused me to consider how little I partake in the joy of receiving something from someone else, how little I actually allow anyone to actually give me anything. And I found myself thinking about Halloween when I was young.


I carried with me, in most of my trick-or-treating, a plastic pumpkin. It was not especially big or deep, but it held its share. And I had a goal each year: I wanted it to be so full that, when we reached my grandparents house, I'd have to dump it out in a grocery bag before continuing on to their neighborhood. It's a goal, I guess, that could seem a little greedy, but greed had nothing to do with it. I didn't want to have more than anyone else. I just wanted to have received so much that I could no longer hold it. I wanted to set out again with a bucket that, while it looked empty, was actually full to overflowing.


These days my goal on Halloween night is to give away all the candy I have in-hand. Part of this is a change in role—from child to adult. But, unfortunately, it's also an indication of a change in me. I can't remember the last time I really felt that Halloween excitement that this day or this night I would receive something from someone else. And I have lost all sense of that desire to find myself so full to overflowing that I have to empty my pail before continuing.


Somewhere I lost the joy of receiving. I lost it with those around me, and I lost it with God. At some point in the years when I took pains to decide what costume to wear and now when I rarely take the time to dress up, I became more concerned with what I could give than with allowing others, and God, to give to me. I began to focus more on the joy I felt standing at the door giving candy rather than the joy found on the porch where, for no reason other than grace, I was given something on my journey through the darkness.


Perhaps this is why I've found myself aching from emptiness now and again this year. Maybe instead of a grocery bag full of candy in the house behind me, my pail is truly empty. Yet I still keep trying to reach deeper into it and find something else to give. In so doing, I move farther and farther from joy.


Maybe it is time to knock and allow other hands to give to me.


God, help me, when I feel empty, to hold out my pail for you to fill it once again.

Fourth Sunday in October

I Samuel 28:15-19


Near the end of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Linus is admonishing his friends for their disbelief in the Great Pumpkin. As he speaks, he lets one little word slip. Only after it is shouted into the night does he realize the horror of what was spoken. "I said if," he says, clamping his hands over his mouth. His exclamation of "if" the Great Pumpkin comes—rather than when—is, he knows, an act of unfaithfulness that spells his doom. No matter how good (or sincere) he's been, that one moment is all it takes to lose favor and bring out the wrath of this entity. It is not unlike the reaction of another being in our story from 1 Samuel.


The idea of the wrath of God is not a comfortable one. Heresies have arisen over the centuries that dared to separate the mean, nasty deity we see referenced in today's encounter and the loving Jesus of the Gospels. Smarter folks than I have attempted to reconcile this fickle God of the Old Testament and the One who was willing to die for those who killed him.


Let's look at Saul here. In fact, let's look at what Saul's in big trouble for in this episode. Saul is now an enemy of God because he didn't slaughter another human being. Because of this he's lost everything: God's favor, Divine friendship, not to mention his kingdom. The Holy One has even stopped speaking to him.


This is a bit frightening. It gets me thinking of other episodes in the Bible. Moses hit a stone and is barred from entering the Promised Land. And how many ancient kings were going along just fine but didn't answer a prophet's question exactly right? My gosh, how big a trouble am I in for my "if" moments?


Come to think of it, I've been wondering lately if I've been left, like Linus, shivering and alone in my pumpkin patch. I know I don't have to look hard to find my own moments of doubt or insincerity. I'm not sure, but I've probably disobeyed some direct order just like Saul did. Heaven knows there are things I've walked away from. And even though I wasn't supposed to carry out a task as bloody, I fear that in some of them was my one last chance to retain (or regain) favor, and I blew it. And now everything I've worked for, everything I'd hoped for or is, like "tricks or treats," gone forever.


But, then, in the midst of my cold and silent night I feel hands. There's no candy scattered about the ground, but there is someone leading me out of the night. There are no voices, but all is not silence. And, waking up the next morning, I begin to wonder if tomorrow, next week, or next year my faith, my sincerity will not seem in vain.


And, maybe, it doesn't matter so much if I do say "if."


Passionate God, thank you for not abandoning me in the night.

Third Sunday in October

I Samuel 28:11-14


As Halloween approaches, it is said that the veil between this world and the next becomes thin allowing passage and communication between here and there. This is the reason that some years ago they televised a séance that attempted to talk to Harry Houdini. Goes to show that our day is not that different from Saul's and a desire to talk to the dead has not gone out of fashion.


Over the weekend, my wife and I sat in the October night and talked about the dead. Namely, we talked about her dad who we lost a little more than a year ago. Perhaps it's that thinning barrier between what-is and what's-next. But he has been in our minds a lot lately and, with him, are things we wish we had said and done.


For reasons I will never be able to explain, my father-in-law liked and loved me almost instantly. I loved him as well. First, because he was the father of the woman I loved. But, soon, I loved him because of the man he was. And I've felt cheated because I only had a few years to know him before Alzheimer's began eating away that person—strong, independent, intelligent—and replacing him with one who was nearly the exact opposite of those things.


He was also, perhaps because of his personality or perhaps because he was my father-in-law, a little intimidating. I suppose it was this or the excuse of it that kept me from returning a lot of the affection he had for me. And before I could begin to correct this, he was disappearing into the fog of the disease that killed him. I was left, as I am now, wishing I had said and done things that I will never have the chance of saying and doing in this world.


This month, I've been thinking and writing about fear. And, I suppose, that theme plays in with regret since it is fear of experiencing that regret as others I love (hopefully later than sooner) pass on that pushes me to say and do more than I have before. Perhaps not all fear is wrong, as long as it does not overtake our lives.


But, in the dark autumn night, my wife and I talked about another fear: that those who are gone must wait until death or the transformation of all things to hear the words we left unsaid and long, now, to say. In reality, there is no medium in Endor to call up those on the other side. We can never say these things that weigh down our hearts face-to-face.


Yet, I do not believe they need go unsaid. Perhaps once upon a time there was a barrier that kept voices from passing back and forth. But just as I believe that the One who broke through the heavy stone of death hears me, those with him are not deaf to my whispered, regretful words. So like, but unlike, Saul, I do talk to the dead.


Resurrected Christ, comfort us with the knowledge that those who have gone before are, as we too will be, with you and the love that binds us cannot be broken by tombs or crosses.