Turn - December 18, 2018

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Turn to the Lord, repent of your sins, transform your lives, be prepared for the coming of the Messiah.

That who will be born in every heart repented and transformed. That is the Advent season, an invitation to wait, to prepare the way to receive Love in each one of us.

And thus, allow our life to be transformed. Turning to God and His commandments, leaving aside the things that perishes us and dedicate our lives to the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

What does it mean to turn to God? It means to take a turn from where we are to the face of God, the one who lives in our neighbor. That homeless person, that immigrant, that junkie, the elderly, the sick, that outcast, that single mom who must face the monthly expenses and who barely manages to.

To get to see all of that we must be transformed by that God made Man, Jesus Christ, the Emanuel. The one who once turned tables at the entrance to the temple, showing us the right way to do our Father's will.

Since I decided to follow Christ, my life is no longer the same, even if I wanted it to be the same, it couldn’t be, because light has nothing to do with the darkness. To walk in the same way of the Lord transforms us so we can see the big picture, it is a new birth in the spiritual life.

My fourth grandson Eli, who was born this week, is proof of God's love, a seed of hope that God has with humanity. He knows we can do it.

Let us take that example of Jesus of bravery and authority in ourselves and turn to the way of the good, of the way of love. Amen.

Post by Roxana Videla Olivares

Returning and Renewal

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“Thus says the Lord: I will return to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts shall be called the holy mountain. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Even though it seems impossible to the remnant of this people in these days, should it also seem impossible to me, says the Lord of hosts?” –Zechariah 8:3-6, from the reading for today’s Daily Office

Last weekend, as I was working on another piece of writing, I came across “The Second Coming,” that famous and frightening poem by W. B. Yeats.  Written in 1919, in the wake of the First World War, “The Second Coming” is a vision of a world literally spiraling out of control. The very best of human achievements—Enlightenment philosophy, liberal economics, science and technology—had culminated in a conflict among nations that resulted in death and suffering on a scale which before this had been simply unimaginable.

Nearly 100 years after Yeats wrote “The Second Coming,” his words seem to remain acutely appropriate for our times.  Following so many stories in the news of our world and our nation over the past one, two, five years, I have reminded myself over and over again of the line, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”  And when I think about those people in positions of power—political leaders in particular but also those who run institutions whose impacts on our life are immeasurable—I keep coming back to Yeats’s assertion that “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”

W. B. Yeats was not the first person to feel like the world around him was falling apart, dissolving into chaos.  He wasn’t the first to recognize that, for all the progress human civilization can make, the specter of war, strife, and violence is always with us.  And he certainly wasn’t the first to envision, in the midst of frightening and incomprehensible historical change, that some kind of major break—a revelation, the Second Coming—was on the horizon. For Yeats, the historical circumstances of the twentieth century meant that the culmination, the decisive break, would have to be terrible, a “rough beast” ushering in something dark and unknown.

In dark times, when it seems like the world is spinning out of control, I’m grateful for passages like the one from today’s Morning Prayer, from the Book of Zechariah.  Here, the prophet presents a vision of a world renewed, a world at peace living with joy in the presence of God.  Even when circumstances seem most dire, when reconciliation among people seems like a naïve dream, we are reminded that with God, nothing is impossible.

Passages like these remind me that the season of Advent, and the celebration of the Incarnation we now look forward to, are not only about our personal, individual renewal (although certainly they are!).  Through the Incarnation, God has offered Godself to walk among us, to renew our societies and cultures, our cities and nations.  Zechariah’s vision is of a world brought back into shape through God’s healing power, not through human accomplishment.

But the vision of renewal does not mean that we can expect to simply sit here and wait for God to do this work.  We are not called to lack all conviction!  Today’s passage begins with God’s call to us to “Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.”  By heeding this call, and seeking to walk in God’s ways and live in relationships of love and charity with one another, we can participate in God’s work of reconciliation.

As my friend and colleague Carrie wrote yesterday’s solstice, “just when it seems like it will be dark forever, the light returns.”  When our world seems at its most dark, we are offered God’s promise of light.  How we respond to that promise may be up to us, but the promise—and the hope it brings—will always be there.

Post by Jett McAlister

Preparation

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In the Eucharistic readings for the Feast of St. Ambrose (today, December 7), we hear Christ instructing his disciples to “Be dressed for action, and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks” (Luke 12:35). This echoes a familiar refrain from the past few days and weeks. Keep awake! Be ready! You do not know the hour when the master will return!

In this season, it can sometimes seem like there are too many things to get ready for. As Christmas approaches, many experience the pressure of putting on the perfect holiday gathering for family or friends, or of getting just the right gifts for everyone.  Others feel the seasonal weight of lengthening nights, or an impending loneliness as they look towards a Christmas apart from their loved ones.  Students may be busy preparing for final exams, or looking forward to the college application season or the job market, with all the uncertainty these provide.  Add to that the news of a world so baffling that it’s anybody’s guess how best to be prepared for what may come… It adds up.  It takes its toll.

And yet here we are, at the beginning of Advent, called by Christ to keep awake, to be ready, to be dressed for action. With all the hubbub and bustle of our lives in December, how on earth are we supposed to do that?

Another of the readings appointed for today’s feast gives us an answer:

            You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy;

                        do not stray, or else you may fall.

            You who fear the Lord, trust in him,

                        and your reward will not be lost.

            You who fear the Lord, hope for good things,

                        for lasting joy and mercy.

                                    (Ecclesiasticus 2:7-9)

Wait, trust, hope.  To be prepared for Christ is to trust God, to hear the Good News that in God we will find joy and mercy.  When the world expects us to be always busy, to be always on the go, it’s happy news indeed that in Christ, to be ready may simply mean to pause, to wait, to understand that our hope is in God’s saving grace and not in our own hectic preparations.  Have your lamps lit, yes, but remember who it is who gives us the fuel for those lamps.

Post by Jett McAllister

Oh, how I need those candles . . .

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By Ann Perrott

   Each week, when a candle is lit on the Advent wreath, I am reminded that Jesus is the ‘light of the world.’  In between those Advent Sundays part of my focus turns to my work and life as I know it.  And, of course there is a return to reports of war, hunger, homelessness, prison conditions and every other bad thing that is going on in the world.  I can easily feel exhausted with all of it. Why does hope feel so out of reach to me these days?  I have always been an optimist—constantly looking at the glass half full, no matter what the world’s condition.  And even though this Advent season brings a personal grief to my family, I feel overwhelmingly bogged down with hopelessness lately that is evident in almost every corner of the world.

 I have come to understand (after reading a lot of Richard Rohr), that what I need to do is to let go of the “self,” the ego that weighs me down.  My own world view is skewed.  I think to myself, “Why isn’t something being done in this country or that one?  Don’t we have to fix this now before too many thousands more people are killed or hurt?  How many wars can the world take at one time, how many horrible dictators?  So much devastation and I cannot do a thing about it.  I hope God knows how I feel about that situation in the Philippines.”  I feel powerless, and I believe it is because I take God out of the equation and replace it with Ann.  When I do that, darkness can be like a canvas in my life, covering up the light I may be missing.

 Then there is the understanding I have that darkness is a part of life.  There are a lot of wonderful things happening in the world—even all around me.  I have to have better eyes to see and leave the world’s problems to God.

We Talk A Lot About Hope

By Sharon Betts

  

We talk a lot about hope. 

We hope the weather will be good for our family vacation. We hope that our favorite team will win the Super Bowl—or at least make it to the big game! We hope that we get just what we want for Christmas.

But for many of us, hope lacks a sense of certainty. It is more like a wish—something that we want to happen but have no way of knowing that it ultimately will. So we keep our fingers crossed and “hope” that everything will go the way we want it to.

The reality is that often life doesn’t turn out the way we hoped it would. Hope is a fragile commodity. When life is disappointing, our optimism is replaced by feelings of discouragement and hopelessness. Before long we run the risk of becoming cynics who believe that there is nothing in which we can confidently hope.

This was the landscape of life when Jesus entered the world. The prevailing mood of Israel was anything but hope. The once proud nation was now a puppet state of the pagan Roman Empire. The common person lived under the defeating burden of the exaggerated requirements of the religious establishment. Centuries before, they had been promised a deliverer who would restore Israel to its former glory, but it had never happened.

Into this sense of cynical hopelessness, true Hope was born. But the tragedy of that first Christmas was that very few realized the hope that had been introduced. Hope for the forgiveness of sins. Hope for a bright future—forever. Hope for God’s presence and power in daily living. Hope that would enable us to forget the past and set our sights on stuff that doesn’t disappoint. A hope that, because of Jesus, is a certainty and not just another wish to be dashed on the rocks of reality.

I love the honesty of the psalmist who said, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?” We’ve all been there. But let’s not stop there. Keep reading! “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Psalm 42:5). Rejoice that Jesus came to give you something better than the disappointments of life on planet earth. And when by faith you embrace Him and all that He promised, you can have a hope that is no longer a fingers-crossed wish that you harbor in your heart, but rather a confident, courageous optimism that is rooted in the certainty of His Word.

Pin your hopes on Jesus this Christmas—you won’t be disappointed!

                                                                                                         

Death be Not Proud in the Season of Advent

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Death Be Not Proud

By John Donne (1572-1631)

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

By Ann Perrott

It seems odd to me that during this season of Advent, a season of hopeful expectation and joy that my older brother, John is losing his battle with cancer.  This season of waiting for the joyous occasion of our Savior is juxtaposed with the expectation of the end of a life. John does not have many days left but is quite comfortable and resolved to his situation. We are watchful and content to sit with him and read, listen to music or be silent.  It has been a very sacramental time for me.  Theologian, Leonardo Goff writes, “In order to see something as a sacrament, we must be looking with the eyes of faith.”  This is exactly how our family sees this experience with John.  We know the love God has for John, and death, as described by John Donne above will not win because “wee wake eternally.” Donne puts death in its place in this sonnet. The hope of eternal life—that is the deeper meaning here, and one which keeps us praying by John’s side.

So this Advent for me has included some grief time and time for joy with the coming of our Savior, Jesus.  Both events hold so much love and so much hope.  What beautiful gifts in a beautiful season.

The Magnificat

A 17th-century Christian view of the Virgin Mary: The Immaculate Conception by Sassoferrato. 
Photograph: Christie's Images/Corbis

By Madeline Pantalena

I’ve had a deep love of the Magnificat since I first heard it as a child. To me, it is one of the most hopeful passages in the Bible.

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.”

My earliest memory of Mo Lederman, now my sponsoring rector, but then my elementary school chaplain, was her leading a chapel full of elementary schoolers in learning the Magnificat. Her strong voice echoed across the chapel as our high voices chimed in on the chorus.

Meeting Mo was another kind of hope. From the age of 8, I dreamed of becoming a priest. My mother, a staunch Roman Catholic, laughed and told me I never could do that. That I was a girl, and only boys could be priests. When I was transferred to St. Thomas’s Day School, an Episcopal school, I met Mo and for the first time saw a reflection of myself leading a congregation in worship. My dreams were rekindled.

At St. John’s North Guilford, where Mo is now the rector, we still sing the Magnificat the same way I did with Mo as a 10 year old. I am always immediately brought back to that first moment of rekindled hope—that I too could be like Mo, leading a congregation in a song of exquisite praise.

Poem with reflection by Thom Peters

Hope Holds to Christ

by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1899)

Hope holds to Christ the mind’s own mirror out

To take His lovely likeness more and more.

It will not well, so she would bring about

An ever brighter burnish than before

And turns to wash it from her welling eyes

And breathes the blots off all with sighs on sighs.

Her glass is blest but she as good as blind

Holds till hand aches and wonders what is there;

Her glass drinks light, she darkles down behind,

All of her glorious gainings unaware.

. . . . . . . .

I told you that she turned her mirror dim

Betweenwhiles, but she sees herself not Him.

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Poems. London: Humphrey Milford, 1918; Bartleby.com, 1999. www.bartleby.com/122/. November 22, 2016.

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This poem is hard to understand at first reading, but try it a second time.

Imagine you are Hope, and you desperately want to see Christ in this magical mirror.  But you keep seeing yourself, so you keep trying to make the image in the mirror clearer.  You wash it with your tears.  And then with your breath.  You keep trying and trying, trying so long that your hand begins to ache holding up the mirror.  But still, you see yourself.

For now.  Advent is that time of waiting, knowing that someday we will be able to see Christ fully.  There will come a time when we shall see all things more clearly.  

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.  

(I Corinthians 13:12)

Feast of Immaculate Conception of Mary

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By Benjamin Straley

Though a date not found on our Anglican calendars, today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary for our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, with many large pilgrimages and processions taking place in Latin America and abroad.  And although not defined until as recently as 1854, the Roman doctrine around the Immaculate Conception is certainly consonant with tradition and reason, if not scripture.  I am not here to speculate or ponder the place of Marian veneration in Anglicanism, however; but I would suggest that in Mary we see a sign of profound Hope, which is the theme of this Advent blog series.

When we consider that God, in preparing the way for Jesus, could move through and in the life of Mary to bring about the salvation of the world, we should ponder all that preceded her 'Yes' at Gabriel's Annunciation to her. As the Psalmist says, "Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb; all of them were written in your book..." (Ps. 139, v. 15).

As Rowan Williams points out, "Mary stands for all the history of God's people, the steady knowledge of promise and faithfulness; but she is also the first explicit believer in Jesus: from her womb flows the river of life. And when we echo her 'Yes,' the freshness of God in Jesus flows from the center of our being too." (Footnote)

That we, likewise, can bear Christ to the world around us should fill us with immense hopefulness for the life of that same world; and that God begins working in and through us, even before we are aware of it, leading to those moments where we are called upon to act, should fill us with not only hope - yes - but awe and wonder.

Footnote: Ponder These Things: Praying with Icons of the Virgin. Copyright 2002 by Rowan Williams. Published by Canterbury Press, Norwich, United Kingdom.

Hope is the anchor of my soul

By Sharon Betts

 

Hope is the Anchor of my Soul…

 

"This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary.” (Hebrews 6:19 NLT)

For me hope is not a wish or a dream, it is the anchor of my trust in God’s promise. The season of Advent reminds me that my hope in Christ is what sustains me and carries me during my times of uncertainty as well as what gives me strength to share his love with certainty and confidence with others. For it is when we are anchored in God’s word our minds and emotions have the ability to find some stability even in the worst of life’s storms. 

It is the trust in God’s love that keeps hope alive. In Christ, we can have expectant hope, a living hope infused by love which moves us away from wishful thinking to a faithful knowledge of God’s security offered to us in the gift of his son, our blessing of salvation.

      

 Gracious and Loving God, thank you for your loving care, your promises and gifts which securely anchor us.  Thank you that our future is secure in Christ.