(Message given December 18, 2022 at Wayside Friends Church)
How do we look honestly at this world, and still find God’s work of hope?
If you follow me online during this advent season, you may question whether I am truly looking for hope, because I spend most of December yelling with my caps lock on. This is because nine years ago I created a Christmas tradition called Advent Caroling Madness. I ask people to submit songs, and I set up a bracket, and we vote to find the best song. Like right now, we’re voting on the best Christmas song released in the 1990’s. And I HAVE to yell, because people vote so horribly!
Last week, we voted to find the song that best displayed waiting and longing, which is the purpose of the Advent season. There were some absolutely amazing submissions, and it got me to create a “Waiting and Longing” playlist. It’s been on repeat for me on my commute, and these songs show me how to look honestly at this hard world, and still find God’s work of hope in it.
One of my favorites is “All Shall Be Well” by Ordinary Time, given to me last year by my friend Kelly. The song lyrics feel absolutely perfectly crafted to me the more times I listen to it. They begin with Abram, called out by God at night, asked to number the stars. God’s promise of blessing is there, and the promise that all shall be well. But then a recognition of the long waiting by the people of Israel, until we have another star, and Mary, and the hope of the baby Jesus. But again, the recognition that we are still waiting. Listen to the last verse:
The years unending seem
Here in this in between
“Peace on earth, good for men”
Seems like it came and went
The wars they linger on
The darkness overcomes
We need not stars but sun
Break in O Coming One
Sometimes we cannot tell
That You will make all well
To look honestly at this world absolutely must mean seeing the unending years in this “in-between.”
Life is not the like board game Candyland. There is no drawing a card that avoids all the pitfalls and jumps you ahead to Princess Frostine or King Kandy.
I was a little worried that continuing the longing theme this close to Christmas, and not pumping up the Christmas joy, might be a problem tonight. But Tuesday’s reading in our Advent book from Gareth Higgins gave me all the permission I needed to stay in this honest, longing space:
One of the things that makes this season difficult for some is the sense of imposed happiness—the fact that we’re supposed to feel, or pretend to feel, something deliriously joyful. Imposing emotions on folk is troubling, not least because it doesn’t work, but also because coercion is never a manifestation of love.
(Keep Watch With Me, p. 87)
So we’ll keep with this longing theme, looking honestly at the world and its in-betweenness; looking for God’s work of hope.
What do we see in the Christmas story that might lead us toward hope?
This year, I’m noticing the way there are these little communities, these relationships, that provide support and strength in a bunch of ways. Elizabeth last week pointed us toward the dynamic duo of Mary and Elizabeth, these cousins experiencing shocking pregnancies. These women see each other, love each other, support each other. They are a little community that calls forth justice, that challenges power structures! Elizabeth loudly names God’s blessing over Mary and her child.
And Mary…Mary receives it, and sings community lyrics (her song is pulled from the Hebrew scriptures), sings lyrics which confidently proclaim that God is raising up the humble and bringing down rulers from their thrones. Elizabeth and Mary nurture each other, they are nurtured by their wider community, and they are nurtured by scripture as they celebrate the coming work of God.
The shepherds are another little community, a tight group, connected in many ways because they are rejected by society.
They’re the outsiders doing the job nobody wants, staying up all night watching other people’s wealth, caring for smelly sheep as they wander here and there. Angels light up the sky, but they still need each other, still need one of them to go, “Um, hey, um, how ’bout we go see this thing the angels talked about, instead of just sitting here with our jaws dropped?”
Or the Magi, the Gentile Pagan outsiders, banned from worship in the temple of God in Jerusalem…but waiting, watching, looking for God’s hope.
They find it in the constellations, and they come sacrificially; traveling a long distance, bringing costly gifts, naively celebrating the news with Herod when they arrive and get close. Yet they also are willing to deceive Herod and the powers that be and NOT give information about the hope they’ve found, once they are warned of the danger Herod and the powers bring.
These three communities—women, outsiders, and pagans—all honestly seeing this world, all seeking and finding God’s hope, all banding together to support each other.
I wanted to act this all out up here for you, but they wouldn’t let me have a manger set. I have no idea why!
And there’s Simeon, and Anna, and the whole temple community.
BECAUSE they gather, BECAUSE they have made this community of worship, they see and speak hope to Mary and this child of hope.
Maybe our action step toward hope is to create the community we crave.
Maybe our task is to create the little communities that will shape the people who will shape change, who will shape our wider town, who will shape our world, who will shape justice into existence!
In Monday’s reading in our Advent book, Tony Evans wrote about looking for hope as a person serving two life sentences in prison. These lines leaped off the page for me:
At my current prison, we’re forming a community of insiders who want to live in peace. In this special unit, we dwell together without fear of gang violence or of getting stabbed on the way to the shower… We are encouraging each other, teaching each other, loving each other, and living with each other in harmony. This change we want begins with us. Small steps, small things to look forward to, small rays of hope—they all allow us to simply hang on. Just hang on.
(Keep Watch With Me, p. 82)
He’s looking honestly at the world, and finding God’s hope by building a community that can thrive, even in soul-breaking circumstances. A community to help each other hang on. A community that loves each other.
In a part of the bible that may have become so familiar we forget its power, 1 John 4 reminds us how loving God and loving each other are intertwined, flowing and growing each other.
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much They loved us by sending Their one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that They loved us and sent Their Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
I John 4: 7–10, New Living Translation
God is tangible love, not theoretical love. God is what we celebrate at Christmas: divinity that cannot help but draw close to this humanity which They have created.
Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and Their love is brought to full expression in us.
I John 4: 11–12, New Living Translation
As God lives in us, the love overflows. Love takes flight, comes to life! God with us, God in us, us in God…it’s echoes of the gospel of John, and the hope of being part of that great Relationship of Love, the Divine Fusion that is God’s very self.
As we look honestly at this world, may we tangibly bring love to life with each other! Love is God’s being, love is God’s work of hope!
The newest song on my waiting and longing playlist, the newest song from my caps lock yelling Advent Madness, is from Audrey Assad. Audrey Assad! If she’s singing to you over and over in your car out in the wide expanse of farmland south of St. Paul, tears will WRECK you. Or, so I hear. Your mileage may vary, past performance is no guarantee of future results.
She has this hauntingly hopeful song called “Irrational Season,” where she boldly and honestly looks at this world, names the times when we are out there beyond, out there hurting, out there alone, out there with nothing making sense.
And she dares to name that God is with us there. She dares to name that light and love burn brighter and clearer THERE. Listen:
All the way my Savior leads me
To peace that is past understanding
Into the wilderness to find the streams
To know beyond comprehending
And the light is wilder here
Out on the edge of reason
And love burns bright and clear
Out where I can not seize Him
Oh the night is darker here
Out on the edge of reason
But love burns bright and clear
Out where I can not seize Him
Oh, this.
Oh this.
Not only CAN I look honestly at this world and find hope. I MUST look honestly at this lonely, unjust, and irrational world to find the wilder light, the brighter love.
God is not able to be seized there, controlled there, owned there. Yet God loves wildly there!
May we enter the irrational season and receive and practice love. May we receive and practice love as we create little communities! This is what I’m experiencing, holding, and trying to do my little part to create and expand. With young adults, with our emerging leaders program. This is what I see with the youth group and college group and Table14. This is what I receive and give in this beautiful community of Wayside.
The young adults love me even though I’m old! Elenita loves me even though I’m young! We are building community and practicing love and finding hope, even in this irrational season.
May the Divine Fusion of Love bring us to life as we build little communities of love, this season and always.