Gloriously WEIRD!!!
Come thou long expected Jesus born to set the people free ... Joy of every longing heart. Amen.
I wonder do you ever just sit back and ponder... take in your life in a contemplative observant kind of way? Whenever I do that, I quickly recognize that we, beloved ones of Christ, are truly, without a doubt ... WEIRD!
That’s right, I said it WEIRD. Gloriously WEIRD I mean that in the best way possible! Check it out...
Macy’s is already blaring Mariah Carey (God help us all) she says she doesn’t need a lot presents this year... The tree is up Magic and Glitziness is everywhere, YUP—the game is a foot-- Consumermas is in full swing for weeks now. People are distracting themselves with shopping and eating and expectations that are sky high with blissfulness and presents and all the rest. And God forbid you don’t have the perfect family connection. It’s no wonder that loneliness depression and suicide are so heightened at this time of the year.
And here we are in liturgy land: no tree in sight, no red and green, no Christmas Carols yet, no baby, we’re hanging out in blue with John the Baptist... (J.theB. I like to call him) who likes to eat bugs... we all have odd cousins we see at the holidays right? We’re weird.
I’m weird: As Advent began,
I went home, sang my favorite Advent hymn—that little Wesley number that started this sermon (apparently I have a thing for street preachers) set up my nativity with animals in the manger, empty creche for now. Mary and Joe are across the room waiting to take the 90 mile mandatory trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the baby is with the star hidden high in my living room, the Magi are across the room on dog kennel waiting for the star to rise—they won’t get to the manger until January. The Magi are always last to the party. I am not alone in my manger set up--I learned this Advent practice long ago from other weirdos in liturgy land.
And of course of course it all started with lighting my Advent wreath on my dining room table – I light my Advent wreath every night when I come home. That night as I put out my nativity set, at large in my living room I lit the Death candle. Ha!
What’s that you ask?
The weeks of Advent were originally labelled the last 4 things: Death Judgement Heaven and Hell. Lovely stuff.
See—I told you we’re weird in liturgy land! These are dark things.
Because Jesus— this baby we are waiting for who is born in a dark world in a brutal empire, will be light and peace. Mercy and truth will meet one another. Righteousness and peace will embrace in a kiss- as a mom reaches her newborn’s face. Jesus comes into a Dark World. And MY GOD is it ever DARK these days. I’m not just talking about the days leading up to winter solstice.
The best way I know through darkness, is gentle playful laughter and tears all at the same time: Comfort Comfort O My People. Every time I light that first candle, that death candle, I remember all the people I’ve lost – especially the ones that I lost tragically—a bestie in my 20’s who killed himself after coming out to his family. I want a say a word about death. I am not diminishing Sister Death or anyone’s loss. What I am saying is that sometimes only through grief is dark humor.. It was GK Chesterton, who once wrote, “The test of GOOD religion is if you can joke about it.”
Laughter in times of darkness is a tool we need put in our Advent toolbox. And yes, it makes us quirky... but as I once mentioned to one of our 8th grade girls, quirky girls rule the universe.
Don’t believe me about quirky girls ruling the universe? Just wait till you meet the queen of heaven in a few weeks... she’s quirky too.
Born to set the people free...
Speaking of quirky middle schoolers, the other night I had the absolute joy of helping to assist with our middle school youth group. We played with darkness and light together. We played sardines in the dark of Manwaring. Now if you’ve never played sardines in the dark with my dog Aslan Shepherd, you haven’t lived.
Sardines is kind of like reverse hide and seek: The person who is “IT” goes and hides and then each person finds the one who is hiding and hides with them until everyone is hiding together. Thing is, we adults had an easy time of it because by the time all the kids were hiding together, we’d seek out the youth and Aslan would follow along find the kids first and simply stop where the kids were hiding in the dark and start waging her tail. Thanks Aslan.
Aym then had us craft black out poetry with Gospel passages from John that used light and darkness. Our youth crafted exquisite poetry from scripture. We stumbled and played with the Light coming into the world of out darkness.
We ended by praying with the news-- and letting the light that is God into the darkness of the hard things of our world: mass shootings, the many who suffer at the hands of our broken medical system, the target painted on the backs of people of color, LGBTQ+ people, the poor, refugees and our elders, the endless cycle of violence in the Hamas Israel war, the now forgotten war of Ukraine, Climate change and our planet. As our youth made art prayers on newspapers I wanted to weep. Weep and repent for all the ways we’ve let them down. I wanted to cry out: Kyrie Eleison!
Beloved ones of Christ if those weren’t the prayers of the people...
I love that we played with poetry and games in the dark and prayed art over the news. We didn’t flee from suffering and darkness in our world. We didn’t leave God out of the mix. J. the B.—our bug eating prophet cousin would have rolled with that. Wesley the street preacher poet would have liked that too. Truly it was Advent. I think we even lit the death candle.
This week’s is a uncomfortable one—Judgment. In Greek, the word for judgement literally means crisis—change. J.the B. and the prophets constantly call us to change—repentance is about crisis which is challenging at best.
However all of these last things are good news and mercy. I want to take them from the toxic theology that so many preach about them.
Death is forever changed by Jesus’s coming into the world: his dying and rising. Jesus’s Death is healing. Judgement is always for us. Heaven is not pie in the sky by and by. Heaven is HERE and now the ways we bring about compassion. Hell: we devastate it—daily in our world— bring justice and hope. Simple. Hard to do. But simple. The last four things are first.
We are called to take on the darkness and be light bearers. That’s Advent.
Those are candles we light and remember in Advent as we wait and yup, it’s weird and dark. So, we play and laugh with darkness and light.
We are weird. Gloriously weird!
Bug eating cousins. Street preachers. Kids playing with darkness. But you know what? It sure beats Macy’s Mariah Carey and Consumermas...
I want to light the death candle, play in the darkness and be a quirky girl like Mary.
Waiting for Jesus to be born.
Joy of every longing heart... Amen.