Thoughts for the First Sunday of Advent

My church puts together an Advent devotional booklet each year, and I wrote the meditations for all of the Sundays this year. Here is today's:

Sunday, November 30th: First Sunday of Advent

If only you would tear open the heavens and come down!

Mountains would quake before you

like fire igniting brushwood or making water boil.

If you would make your name known to your enemies,

the nations would tremble in your presence.

Isaiah 64:1-2

Read Isaiah 64:1-9

For thousands of years, humans have longed to see God with our own eyes. All too often, we have done a great job of manufacturing a god or gods we could see...much to the detriment of our relationship with the God of the universe, the Creator of all things.

The prophets of Israel were like the rest of us in this, that they would really have liked to see God, it seems. Isaiah cried out to God, for God’s presence to be made known in visible and tangible ways, to the people of Israel. He longed for the people to heed his warning words from God, and he looked for God to make a big show of God’s presence, to let everyone know who was really in charge.

The Church has also looked for all kinds of signs of God’s showing up with us again, ever since Christ’s ascension. People have put lots of time and effort into trying to figure out when that would happen. No matter when it does happen, though, the Church has observed Advent as a time to prepare for Christ’s return. It’s a time not to calculate days and hours, but to be prepared for what Isaiah hoped for, to examine ourselves and let God be at work making us into people who look forward to the excitement of Christ’s return—not people who live in fear of when that happens. Advent is a time for us to seek God’s work in and through us, for as Isaiah said,

^“But now, Lord, you are our father.
    We are the clay, and you are our potter.
    All of us are the work of your hand.” (v.8)

As Advent begins, how will you look for God to change you this season? What will you do differently, to let that happen?

Prayer: God, our Potter, help us to look forward not only to the celebration of Christ’s birth, but also to Christ’s return, with hope and joy. Amen.

October: A Time for Pumpkin Lattes and Domestic Violence Awareness...

It’s hard to say when it started. I met him at church. He came to the Sunday school class I attended, and we were two of very few single young adults in the church—a church with a large and enthusiastic young adult population, most with young families.

I remember he said he wasn’t sure what he needed in a relationship. He had just had a horrible break-up with a live-in girlfriend. When he believed she was cheating, he had taken her cell phone and looked through her call log and text messages. Their arguing had escalated to the extent that police had been involved, I think. It sounded like she had been quite a doozy… And he was still mourning his mother’s death from cancer, a year or two before. It was a sad story. He had few friends; he was depressed (I do thank God he finally did get treatment for that...after our relationship was over). His job was not entirely fulfilling, and he wasn’t making the money he had always thought he would. Maybe I thought I could help him. He thought I would be a good influence on him, as I was going to be a pastor, and all. It took me just a little too long to realize the harmful nature of the pedestal I was so precariously placed on, in his mind.

So, it’s hard to say when it started. He was sad. I was lonely. He was 8 years older than me. Maybe that made it OK that he would move my glass away from me at dinner, just in case I might spill it (kind of like my parents would do when I was 5…). Maybe that made it true that I had no comprehension of how stressful money troubles could be (even though I had my own job and paid my own bills and worked diligently to live within my own means). Maybe that made it acceptable for him to question and dislike my friends, to say I should have tried harder to find a job that paid what a person with an M.A. in English “should” be paid (rather than the pay the inner city mission agency could afford), and to treat me like my lack of experience in romantic relationships meant I had to agree to do everything his way. Maybe he was right—maybe I did expect him to say “I love you” too often, so it was OK when he stopped saying it…

There were some good moments, of course. We got along well sometimes, and we had fun together. And when we did have an argument, after a day or two of the cold shoulder, he would be contrite. Things would be good again, for a while. It’s typical…the cycle of abuse.

For Christmas, he got a “promise ring" for me. It got him what he wanted. I got more broken. We set a wedding date for late July, shortly before I would need to move for seminary. By late February, when we met with the pastor for our first premarital counseling session, the date was already off the table, for a number of reasons. I first tried to break up with him in April, and in May I gave back the promise ring—it was never quite clear to me what the promise was supposed to be, anyway. Not long after that, I determined that my move to Durham in August would be my way out of the relationship. He didn’t like it when I told him that, but I didn’t know how else to exit the relationship and I did know that once I was out of his sight, I’d be out of his mind, for the most part. On the date we had initially set as a wedding date, I spent the day hanging out at the house of one of his friends, while he and his friend replaced my car’s shocks and struts. At least that redeemed that date, in one sense: free labor on a major car repair was a lot better deal than getting married to the wrong guy…but I’m still waiting for the year that date goes by unnoticed for me. The relationship ended, more or less officially, in October, after two months of very little contact following my move. (Two months of seminary classwork will bring clarity about a thing or two, too!) It was a year of my life I will never get back…and it took me 3 more years and 3 stints of counseling to realize fully how much damage had been done.

So, fast forward 3 years from the October that I got out of that mess. Holston Conference’s clergy day apart is all about domestic violence awareness, this particular year. Our bishop shares his story of domestic violence that killed his own mother. We receive a handout that describes the profile of an abuser. I realize, sitting in the balcony at Colonial Heights UMC in Kingsport, TN, that I have been abused. Whoa.

A few months later, with the help of a counselor and the grace of God, I came to terms with that fact. I learned to deal with the me that was vulnerable to such abuse. It wasn’t easy to admit. I mean, I’m too educated to have been a victim of emotional abuse. I’m too intelligent, have too much common sense, was raised to be an independent thinker and do what’s right. How could I have been a victim of abuse?

And it’s not that I didn’t have friends and family that cared for me. They tried. They were concerned. But I was stuck--in much deeper than I realized at the time.

So, what is there to say now about what happened then? Well, what I can say now is that the abuse was really quite subtle. I don’t think it was entirely intentional on his part. In fact, I remember quite clearly telling the first counselor I talked to that no, he was not abusive, just manipulative. Manipulative isn’t so bad, right? And what I can say now is that I have been taught all my life to take responsibility for my actions, sometimes to a fault, which makes it really easy not to admit that I’ve been a victim of someone else’s wrong actions. And what I can say now is that when there aren’t physical signs, it’s really easy to convince oneself that the abuse “wasn’t that bad.” And maybe it wasn’t. But it sure wasn’t “good,” or even "normal," either.

Why am I writing about this? Well, I guess it’s my blog and I can share my story if I want to, right? But I also need to say that this culture that says that women are to blame for their abuse, for not getting out of abusive relationships, for wearing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing or just not saying “no” when someone else thinks they should have, needs to be called out. This idea that some men just can't help themselves is, well, to keep things G-rated here, nonsense. Yeah, I made some choices I’m not proud of, but I am not to blame for what someone else did to me. I did not ask to be put in the situation I ended up in. And yeah, I understand why it’s so hard to leave. We all want to be loved. Sometimes, it doesn’t work out the way we think it will. Then, we get good at blaming ourselves. Then, we make excellent excuses on our abuser's behalf. We don’t need the society around us blaming us and making excuses for our abusers, too. Thankfully, some of us are able to leave with less damage than others. Some are not able to leave, ever.

In this month marked for domestic violence awareness, don’t just feel sorry for the women, children, and men who find themselves adrift in the wreckage of relationships that have been abusive. Listen to someone else’s story. Sit with someone else, in her sorrow--or dance with her, in her joy for a new beginning! And for the love of God (and I really mean that), pray, and seek to treat all of your neighbors, including (especially?) those in your very own house and most intimate relationships, with the respect and love and grace that God has offered you. I promise it will help. But if that’s too big of a step, just work on telling people that you love them…and really mean it. I’ll be working on all of that, too.

Thanks.

Maybe I Have Something to Say...

Ferguson, MO, feels about a million miles away from where I live now. As I have read news from there since last month, I cannot help but feel what seems like an immeasurable distance from what has happened there. This was not always so for me. I grew up not all that far down Interstate 44 from the St. Louis area. My parents both taught in the Ferguson-Florissant school district in the late 60s. They even met and got married at Ferguson UMC, I believe. I know enough of their stories to know that any claims I heard denying racial tension prior to the last two months are not quite accurate.

Still, I don't know a whole lot about Ferguson, MO, now. Most of the people where I live now have never been anywhere near there. Many of them didn't care about Ferguson before August...and honestly, they still don't today. So on Sunday, August 17^th, I did not say much about what had happened there. Though we lifted up the people there in prayer, and though I touched briefly on racism as a challenge the church in America faces, I did not make any fiery proclamations from the pulpit that day. I spoke no deeply moving prophetic word. I had friends who posted on Facebook that every pastor’s preaching should have been prophetic that day. And I felt guilty...

In the days and weeks since then, I have wondered what I could say, what I, perhaps, should have said. As a United Methodist minister, I am used to being someone who's "not from around here," and that makes a difference in how and what I preach. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to say something, though…

I have tried to figure out what I do have to say, as I've read and heard more about the Michael Brown story and Ferguson, MO. And what I keep thinking about is another place that feels about a million miles away from here, but is actually quite a bit closer: Knoxville, TN. Specifically, a neighborhood called Mechanicsville. I've been thinking about Mechanicsville because for two years, between graduate programs, I worked there. Every weekday, and sometimes on the weekends, I drove the short distance from the Bearden area (a “suburb” of Knoxville) into Mechanicsville, to a place called the Wesley House Community Center. I wrote lesson plans, hired staff, drove vans to schools, and became part of something this white girl from a small town in central Missouri might scarcely have imagined was possible: a community where we didn't all look alike or get along all the time, but we did what we could to take care of children who needed to be loved and who just needed some of the chances that those kids down the street in Bearden had plenty of. Nothing was perfect there. Some people were suspicious of me, and I could understand why. Lots of times, I or someone else thought maybe I wasn't right for that job. Plenty of times, staff let me down, kids misbehaved, resources were not what I would have liked them to be. It's the story of the inner city. It's the story of people who are all too often holding on with all their might to a few remaining threads of dignity that a broken system begrudgingly affords them only because they are, after all, human. And it's not fair. And I left there knowing that I will still never know what it's like to live that way, no matter how deeply I was pulled into their stories and no matter how much my heart broke for them. My story will never have the tragic circumstances of many of theirs, in large part because of where I was born and what kind of advantages my family had and what I look like, and a host of other circumstances that in many ways boil down to dumb luck.

So why am I writing this? What am I trying to say? Maybe, if you'll allow me to share something that could be offensive, I could sum it up like this: when I started at the Wesley House Community Center, in many ways, the black kids looked a lot alike to me and I didn’t always understand what they were talking about. When I left there, I had more trouble telling the white kids apart than I did the black kids. I know that sounds horrible or ridiculous or just absolutely offensive. What it means to me, though, is that in those two years, children who didn't look a thing like me became my children. People I might otherwise never have met became some of my closest friends. We shared a passion for the children we cared for, if almost nothing else. I also came to understand how deeply ingrained some stereotypes were that I didn’t even realize affected me. I faced parts of me that were uncomfortable, groundless fears and misunderstandings that were easier to rationalize than to admit and let go of. I didn’t leave there perfect, by any means, but I left there changed in ways that I will always cherish.

But this is all not to say in some veiled way, "I have some black friends." That's not really what I'm trying to say at all. What I learned in those two years, among other things, is that believing someone else is part of a "them" made no more sense than denying any part of my own self I might not want someone to notice. As long as there is a "them," we have a problem. No, I will never know what it is to be a person of color in the United States. I acknowledge that. But I do know that as long as someone who doesn't look or act like me is one of "them," whomever "them" is, simply because we are different, then I fail to be faithful to what I know and have experienced of the God who created us all and offers grace and love beyond measure to all people.

I miss Knoxville. I miss the reminders of lessons I learned about difference and perspective and justice...and how I have learned very little of these lessons outside of the inner city, no matter how intelligent or learned or sympathetic I think I am. What happened in Ferguson, MO, is not tragic simply because of its happening. It is tragic because it is not a singular incident. I can’t begin to tell you what I would give for it to be the last of its kind, to know that no one else's child would lie lifeless on a street somewhere, not those I once worked with in Knoxville, not those anywhere else...and to know that no one's child would feel compelled to have taken that life away, in a moment of fear, misunderstanding, passion. We belong to God—all of us. I pray I will continue to learn that, no matter where I am in ministry. And I pray this nation and our world will grow to learn that, even as we continue to wait for God’s redemption of the whole of creation.

My Most Difficult Funeral...So Far...

Two weeks ago, the funeral home called me and asked me to do a service for a family that didn't regularly attend church and who had just had twin baby girls delivered already dead, at 29 weeks. The enormity of this task took some time to dawn on me (I got the call in the middle of the first night of VBS), and I finally sat before my computer late that Sunday night, with my Book of Worship open at my side, feeling as though I had absolutely nothing to say to this family.

Ultimately, I came up with something to say, thanks in large part to spending enough time in prayer and listening to the Holy Spirit, even in the short amount of time I had--well, those things and spending time looking through the Book of Worship and finding more helpful resources than I initially realized were there...and I got it all together, not a moment too soon. And I held it together reasonably enough to read through it...while my heart was torn to shreds by the situation. I share this message with you, in the hope that maybe someone else will need to read this and also that someone else could offer me thoughts in how to feel better equipped to minister in situations like this again. What could I say differently or better, in this kind of situation? I appreciate any insights on this.

Here's what I wrote and said (for the most part), aside from the liturgy:

Scripture Readings

Psalm 103:13-19

Mark 10:13-16

I have to be honest with you—I’ve never done a service like this before. I have struggled with what words to say today. Nothing comes easily, in the face of a tragedy like this, except for questions and emptiness and pain and sorrow. Nothing seems fair or right.

You don’t know me—I’ve only just met most of you—but if you did know me, you’d know it’s rare for me to have no words to say. Today, as we stand here together, as we look beyond what we can see in the here and now, into the mysteries of God we know nothing about, as we stand clinging to a tiny beam of hope in the midst of a great darkness of pain and sorrow, I am silenced. I can’t tell you, “it will all be OK.” I can’t tell you, “everything happens for a reason.” I can’t tell you, “God needed those two precious babies.” I don’t believe any of that.

Here’s what I can tell you and what I do believe, though: that God does care, that God cries with us today, and that Jesus loves each one here more than we can understand. Sometimes, death makes it feel like God doesn’t care about us, and unexplained tragedy and hurt make it seem like Jesus can’t possibly love us, but I know the song is true—“yes, Jesus loves me…”—and he loves each of us gathered here.

There may not be a good explanation for what has happened. There is no easy way to get through it and to make the pain go away and see “the bright side,” once again. But I believe that God is here. And I believe that just as Jesus blessed the little children long ago, he still cares for each one. I believe in the promises that the psalm-writer believed—that God’s faithful love lasts forever.

In moments like this, it is not easy to believe. In moments like this, it is easier to ask questions and have hard feelings. And I understand that. And I promise you all, no matter what, God is with you in the midst of this. God will be with you when the pain is less and there are happier days. And Jesus’ love will be there for you, whenever you can say once again that you believe. God is patient. God waits for us and with us through our darkest times and welcomes us home when we are able to come back, even when we’ve been through loss like this and have lots of questions. God holds us when we are grieving. We are not alone, and we are not unloved. Take comfort in knowing this, and in remembering, “Yes, Jesus loves even me!”

And we believe that God has already welcomed these two precious children to him. And Jesus has loved them, too.