And so Advent begins
1st S in Advent, Year B
" O that You would rend the heavens and come down..." This is part only of a long prayer in the middle of a people that feel abandoned as many have gone into exile. The temple has been burnt. vs. 11. If only is the prayer ...If only things could be different is the thought. Who of us has not felt this? Could da, Should da , Would da kind of thinking is it not? I could be so and so and in the whatever, instead of where I am. We wish for deliverance out of our troubles whatever they may be. And yet we cannot wait. We are so impatient .
" Someone asked Antony, founder of desert monasticism, “What must one do in order to please God?” Antony said to stay focused on God and live according to Scripture, and “in whatever place you find yourself, do not easily leave it." Antony speaks of a core anxiety and truth. We don’t like to stay with what is hard. We try to flee what troubles us, whether literally or figuratively, and God invites staying present." Brother Luke Detewig, SSJE
Here is more it was so good....and we need it, " Remember vineyards. They take years of careful cultivation. A fruitful vineyard shows perseverance and investment. Ancient Israel was an agricultural society, and scripture illustrates with vineyards how to live together. If you let an animal graze on another’s vineyard, repay from the best of your grapes.[ii] Don’t collect all the grapes. Leave some for aliens, orphans, and widows to glean.
Isaiah describes God’s people as a vineyard in whom God invests by clearing stones, building a watchtower, hewing a wine vat, planting and tending vines.[iv] In the Gospel of John, Jesus says: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower … Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.”
Abide can mean to live in, to make yourself at home. There’s a gutsy quality to it. Abide also means to remain or to stick with through challenge. Jesus says the Father stuck with me. I’ll stick with you no matter what.[vi] It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, what you have or what you lack. I will never leave you. Make yourself at home. Keep your routines. I am with you no matter what.
New monastic Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove writes: “Stability is a commitment to trust God not in an ideal world, but the battered and bruised world we know. If real life with God can happen anywhere at all, then it can happen here among the people whose troubles are already evident to us.”[vii] Life, including in community, tempts us to flee, but together with our wounds we come to know and be known by Jesus and each other. Choosing to abide, to stick it out with each other, is choosing to trust God."
We run from place to place in our cars, and in our minds but they are not stable. Our lives are a series of looking without finding, stumbling without seeing and listening without hearing. The people who came into our lives we know their names but we do not know what they did for and to us. Some of them blessed us beyond our wildest dreams. They were our shoulder to lean upon when we were sad and weary with our own selves. They looked at us and wondered what we were and who we should be. And somehow we missed the lesson. Now we rush on hoping to forget what they taught us because that would have required some change and self-examination. We wanted a cool handshake but they gave us a hug. And now we wish they were still here even though when they were here we could not figure out what they wanted from us in the way of growth.
2. God has come down . Has he not? He came down in the person of Jesus Christ, incarnate, made flesh for us . Isaiah tells us ," When you did awesome things that
we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God
besides you, who acts for those who wait for him. 5 You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways"
In this Advent , a time of self examination and reflection, we are to be thankful for the ways in which He worked in our lives in the past through His people. They were not always the people we expected who touched us . There was the lady who begged for a prayer for a house to rent. There was the silent partner, the husband, who silently asked too for the same thing.
Perhaps it was you and I who as we watched the news we prayed for just one good and wholesome good news story amid the tragedies of self-indulgence, misappropriation of relationships, and lives lived without love & truth & character & ethics.
3. We live in a time that expects excitement but God is not in that. He is in the 40 years before the burning bush . God is in our daily tasks, our green lights as well as red lights. He is in the least of these my brethren, those in prison, those neglected, and those who need a sick visit / sustenance not just in food, but in spiritual drink.
God is in the exiles of our lives where we have to leave Jerusalem. And He speaks to us in the desert by providing us the manna we need, His word first of all.
But now, O LORD, you are
our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your
hand. 9 Be not so terribly angry, O lorD, and remember not iniquity forever.
In this time of Advent, the days before Christmas, stop, pray and look to God for wisdom. Stop. That is hard for us. Don't go right and on red without stopping first. Reflect on the changes and changes you have become because of the sacrifice of others for you. Renew your commitment to holy values that are lasting, not the ones the world offers us a carrot .
" Be silent and still, and look also inwards, first at the darkness within, at conflicting emotions, at the emptiness of the heart, at inner wounds. We are in need of healing...and in need too of being saved from what is base and ignoble. Whence come those lustful thoughts, involuntary angers, shameful jealousies. We are not as we should be. When silent and still we can, I believe, hear his voice speaking to us through our weakness and inadequacy, ...to most of all give forgiveness and encouragement. He speaks too through anguish and agony to draw us away from what separate us from Him to look to Him for serenity and inner peace." A Spiritual Companion, Cardinal Basil Hume
" O that You would rend the heavens and come down..." This is part only of a long prayer in the middle of a people that feel abandoned as many have gone into exile. The temple has been burnt. vs. 11. If only is the prayer ...If only things could be different is the thought. Who of us has not felt this? Could da, Should da , Would da kind of thinking is it not? I could be so and so and in the whatever, instead of where I am. We wish for deliverance out of our troubles whatever they may be. And yet we cannot wait. We are so impatient .
" Someone asked Antony, founder of desert monasticism, “What must one do in order to please God?” Antony said to stay focused on God and live according to Scripture, and “in whatever place you find yourself, do not easily leave it." Antony speaks of a core anxiety and truth. We don’t like to stay with what is hard. We try to flee what troubles us, whether literally or figuratively, and God invites staying present." Brother Luke Detewig, SSJE
Here is more it was so good....and we need it, " Remember vineyards. They take years of careful cultivation. A fruitful vineyard shows perseverance and investment. Ancient Israel was an agricultural society, and scripture illustrates with vineyards how to live together. If you let an animal graze on another’s vineyard, repay from the best of your grapes.[ii] Don’t collect all the grapes. Leave some for aliens, orphans, and widows to glean.
Isaiah describes God’s people as a vineyard in whom God invests by clearing stones, building a watchtower, hewing a wine vat, planting and tending vines.[iv] In the Gospel of John, Jesus says: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower … Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.”
Abide can mean to live in, to make yourself at home. There’s a gutsy quality to it. Abide also means to remain or to stick with through challenge. Jesus says the Father stuck with me. I’ll stick with you no matter what.[vi] It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, what you have or what you lack. I will never leave you. Make yourself at home. Keep your routines. I am with you no matter what.
New monastic Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove writes: “Stability is a commitment to trust God not in an ideal world, but the battered and bruised world we know. If real life with God can happen anywhere at all, then it can happen here among the people whose troubles are already evident to us.”[vii] Life, including in community, tempts us to flee, but together with our wounds we come to know and be known by Jesus and each other. Choosing to abide, to stick it out with each other, is choosing to trust God."
We run from place to place in our cars, and in our minds but they are not stable. Our lives are a series of looking without finding, stumbling without seeing and listening without hearing. The people who came into our lives we know their names but we do not know what they did for and to us. Some of them blessed us beyond our wildest dreams. They were our shoulder to lean upon when we were sad and weary with our own selves. They looked at us and wondered what we were and who we should be. And somehow we missed the lesson. Now we rush on hoping to forget what they taught us because that would have required some change and self-examination. We wanted a cool handshake but they gave us a hug. And now we wish they were still here even though when they were here we could not figure out what they wanted from us in the way of growth.
2. God has come down . Has he not? He came down in the person of Jesus Christ, incarnate, made flesh for us . Isaiah tells us ," When you did awesome things that
we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God
besides you, who acts for those who wait for him. 5 You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways"
In this Advent , a time of self examination and reflection, we are to be thankful for the ways in which He worked in our lives in the past through His people. They were not always the people we expected who touched us . There was the lady who begged for a prayer for a house to rent. There was the silent partner, the husband, who silently asked too for the same thing.
Perhaps it was you and I who as we watched the news we prayed for just one good and wholesome good news story amid the tragedies of self-indulgence, misappropriation of relationships, and lives lived without love & truth & character & ethics.
3. We live in a time that expects excitement but God is not in that. He is in the 40 years before the burning bush . God is in our daily tasks, our green lights as well as red lights. He is in the least of these my brethren, those in prison, those neglected, and those who need a sick visit / sustenance not just in food, but in spiritual drink.
God is in the exiles of our lives where we have to leave Jerusalem. And He speaks to us in the desert by providing us the manna we need, His word first of all.
But now, O LORD, you are
our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your
hand. 9 Be not so terribly angry, O lorD, and remember not iniquity forever.
In this time of Advent, the days before Christmas, stop, pray and look to God for wisdom. Stop. That is hard for us. Don't go right and on red without stopping first. Reflect on the changes and changes you have become because of the sacrifice of others for you. Renew your commitment to holy values that are lasting, not the ones the world offers us a carrot .
" Be silent and still, and look also inwards, first at the darkness within, at conflicting emotions, at the emptiness of the heart, at inner wounds. We are in need of healing...and in need too of being saved from what is base and ignoble. Whence come those lustful thoughts, involuntary angers, shameful jealousies. We are not as we should be. When silent and still we can, I believe, hear his voice speaking to us through our weakness and inadequacy, ...to most of all give forgiveness and encouragement. He speaks too through anguish and agony to draw us away from what separate us from Him to look to Him for serenity and inner peace." A Spiritual Companion, Cardinal Basil Hume
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