Love, the Lord, is On the Way

“I’m dreamin’ of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know. . .”
   

Nostalgia:  this month, this week, today--is probably the peak season for nostalgia in our year, isn’t it?  That line, from that song points to the pattern that many of us have of looking back to a time that we remember as sweeter, more innocent, more full of hope and promise. 
   

Maybe it is just the mood to accompany our text from Isaiah 61 this morning.  This part of Isaiah, known as third Isaiah, came from a period in Israel’s history, after the return from exile, to a home that had been devastated.  First, there was the defeat and exile.  Then the years of longing to be home.  Then the euphoria of release from capitivity and the return home.  The trouble was, those few who did return to their home found it not to be the glorious return for which they had hoped.  They had much to be discouraged about in that 100 years following the return.  In that sixth century B.C.  The people were barely surviving.  The city walls had been destroyed, so they had no protection from bandits and rival tribes.  There were disputes over claims to ancestral lands.  Vineyards and olive trees had been cut down, so food was in short supply.  And Solomon’s temple, the heart and soul of the community,  had not been rebuilt.  When it finally did get rebuilt, decades later, we read in the book of Ezra, that some of those who were old enough to remember Solomon’s temple, wept when they saw the foundations laid for the new building, because they knew it would be only a crude imitation of that earlier, magnificent temple.
   

So, people simply concluded that the promises were false, and that God was not really much of a god after all. A deep mood of apathy set in.  People felt that God was powerless and uncaring.
   

This is similar to the later era, in first century Palestine, where Jesus stood in the synagogue, unrolled the scroll and read this same passage from Isaiah  “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good tidings to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted. . .       

Sixth century B.C.E.; first century Nazareth, twenty-first century Portland:  there is a cry in the wilderness, a call for people to live as God’s people in the disillusioned, dim and disappointed world, even when there is no direct evidence that God is there.
   

Over the years, I’ve spoken with clergy friends serving congregations around the country.  There is a common theme that expresses the nostalgia for the days when their sanctuaries were filled with members, and now they are struggling to stay afloat to pay for upkeep of their buildings.   There is a yearning for restoring and rebuilding.
   

Talk to a couple who are trying to rebuild relationship, after trust is broken and you hear the challenge:  return is not the same thing as restoration.  Look at the communities who have returned after earthquakes in Japan and Haiti; after flood in Indonesia.  Return is not the same as restoration.
   

And then there are the other things in our world in need of repair.  More and more there are hungry children in Oregon and in our nation.  There are jobs that have not returned.  And houses empty of families. And there are debts that loom.
   

Whether a natural disaster or an act of human destruction, the leveling of a city, a nation, is devastating for its people. Just returning to their homes, is not the same thing as having their lives restored. That requires a much deeper transformation.
   

Now, as we are gearing up for an election year in 2012, we are hearing some of the same themes that have echoed through the centuries:  We will rebuild what has been destroyed.  But even, as we hear this, aren’t we like the people of Isaiah’s time?  Our disillusionment stands in the way of hope.    It is difficult to trust after disappointment. The ones we had hope in,  who failed to follow through.  And during this holiday time, some of us are more than disappointed:  we are devastated by the loss of ones we loved.  Nostalgia is too  mild a word.  Life will never be “normal” without the one who died.  We may even feel betrayed.
   

Return is not the same as restoration.   That requires a deeper transformation.  That is the promise of the good tidings.  “I will comfort those who mourn.  I will bind up the brokenhearted.” 
   

How does that transformation happen?  In a world that mostly doesn’t expect God to be concerned, or care,  to be present, honestly--how do we give witness to God’s Love?
   

Marion Woodman, an 80 year old Jungian analyst and author understood that her simple act of presence, she changed the people around her.   She noticed that when she was a high school music and drama teacher, she experienced the power of being a witness.  She noticed that when her attention wavered during rehearsals, something went wrong:  “The energy became lax, muffled and an edge of fear crept in.  The courageous spontaneity was lost.  I suddenly understood that perceiver and perceived were one.”     
   

Suzanne Guthrie, in the Christian Century, wrote:  “Love waits behind the silence of prayer for my yes to a deepening capacity to love.  Every love informs a greater love.  Every lesser love is a forerunner of the great Love, sensed but never seen, to whom Mary once said yes.  In some mysterious way, Mary’s yes to bear this love implies that I too, can bear my loves.”
   

How do we say yes?  How do we bear love, bear witness to God in this hurting world?  In this world that doesn’t really believe that God cares or can act, how do we recognize Jesus and point God out to others?  How do we testify?
   

Over a year ago, I was invited to help raise money to support clergy renewal program that I participated in, from 2007-2010.   (Women Touched by Grace, hosted by Benedictine sisters in Indiana. ) It was like the parable of the talents.  I was given $500 and asked to use it in any way, in order to increase and give back.  I had a dream of using the money to host an evening full of music, food and a gathering for friends.  Thanks to the help of some singing buddies and Peace House, who hosted the event last weekend, all of that came together in a marvelous way.  And we did more than double the amount of money to give back!  But interestingly, I noticed that while we met our fundraising goal, where I saw God shining through was on the way to the event, in the process of getting ready.  That Love glimmered every time we said “yes.”  Yes to accepting the challenge.  Yes to singing.  Yes to being present to one another musically. 
   

Love was there last spring when tenor, bass, alto and I sight read music and decided together what we wanted to sing.  And there in gracious help of a friend who lent her piano skills and helped us learn notes and in the coaching of another friend. And in the patient support of our families, while we rehearsed.
   

Love was in the laughter when we sang about the stable where Jesus was born, and instead of singing about the “shaggy brown donkey”, we sang about the “shaggy, brown monkey”.  (Yes, the light was dim, and it was hard to read the words!) 
   

God’s Love was most certainly shining through the amazing hospitality of Peace House, who provided us with a warm and welcoming concert space and a delicious spread of food and drink. 
   

Could it be that simple?  Could God be in such small moments?    Our theme this Advent is “On the Way”.  On the way could mean that we are waiting to be saved:  (you know the old song:  Hang on, help is on the way.)  Or maybe, just maybe, the God IS on the way, not just in our goal, but in our journey. 

Back in Erwin, Tennesse, my ninth grade English teacher, Barbara Ollis, used to say (in exasperation), “You know I’m gonna’ hep’ you, but you’ve just gotta hep’ yourself a little.” 
   

Like John the Baptist, forerunner to Jesus, our work as a community of faith is to point out God, to see Love,  in our world, now.  When we see and recognize and share that with our hurting world, the world that needs hope, we “hep’ ourselves!”
   

It is a great joy for us today to welcome into membership eleven new members, who you will meet in just a few minutes.  Each one of these people has said “yes” to becoming part of us in a deeper way.  Their saying “yes” bears more love into our world. 
   

The late Rev. William Sloan Coffin wrote:

“It seems to me that in joining a church you leave home and home town to join a larger world.  The whole world is your new neighborhood and all who dwell therein—black, white, yellow, red, stuffed and starving, smart and stupid, mighty and lowly, criminal and self-respecting. . . all become your sisters and brothers in the new family formed in Jesus.  By joining a church you declare your individuality in the most radical way in order to affirm community on the widest possible scale”.
   

How are we bearing witness to Love in our world?
   

What is the deep hope within us for the world?  Where do we need to look to see God in our lives?  How can we share that with our weary, broken-hearted world?  Can we  proclaim that “the Spirit of the Lord is upon us?”  What in our church and community needs not only rebuilding, but restoring?
In what do we rejoice and hope?  What would our lives and the world look like if we made as our first priority—sharing that Love and joy with others?  What then?