Be not afraid

Advent is starting, and I was recently reading through the opening Chapters of Luke in preparation.  There we have the most detailed version of the Christmas story.  This time, as I was reading the story it hit me.  Wow, there is a lot of fear here. A lot of.. reluctance.  That is amazing…. Because we have some big names here.  Mary and Joseph.  The shepherds!  And Zechariah!

But every time we turn around there are the angels saying, “Wait, relax, be not afraid… be not afraid… be not afraid….”   It seems like everyone in the story enters the scene in fear.  Not in joy, expectation, or hope, but in fear.

Mary was afraid.  Joseph was afraid.  The shepherds were afraid.  Of whom, of what where they afraid?  Was it God?  Perhaps it would be better to say they were afraid of what was unfolding.  Because what was unfolding was, different, mysterious, unexpected.  It was a shift, a radical shift, from the status quo.  From what had been expected.  Even from what seemed rational, logical.  No, it was no easy task to go along with God as he revealed, unfolded a new plan, a new direction.

Now this fear was not totally inappropriate.  I mean look at Mary – there she was, a young, inexperienced girl who was given startling news.  She was going to give birth to the Messiah.  And this birth was out of wedlock.  Socially unacceptable.  Yes, she had reason to fear, not only the girth, but Joseph’s reaction, the community’s judgment.  Joseph, he was simple carpenter – asked to play a difficult and important role, and  was called to accept, well something that must have seemed ludicrous, that his now pregnancy fiancée was not unfaithful.  The shepherds, those shabby watchers of sheep.  What they experienced had to have shocked them to the core.

But what about Zechariah?  Zechariah was a priest, a holy man.  In this story Zechariah has been chosen by God through the cast of the lot to offer incense on the great altar in the temple in Jerusalem.  This was THE most prestigious thing a priest good.  And of course the belief was that God would use the lot to choose priests who were uniquely qualified - the spiritual elite. 

So here we have this holy man, doing his job, and suddenly and angel arrives and tells Zechariah about his part in the divine drama which was about to unfold.  And Zechariah was afraid!  I supposed we shouldn’t be too afraid at this initial response.  I mean powerful encounters with God of any sort do tend to be a bit of a shock… Who wouldn’t be surprised to suddenly run into an angel of the lord, and to hear startling news of a soon to be son?

But what is surprising is the continued fear.  Even after the angel outlined God’s plan for him, a plan that was truly exciting, Zechariah was fearful.  Even after the news was offered that he would finally have a son, something he had prayed for… so this wasn’t even a new plan… he was fearful.  So fearful that God silenced him, literally, until the baby was born.

What was it was with Zeke?  What is it, so often with us!!?  God comes – one way or another God reveals his purpose…  reveals a new option… opens a new door… inspires us, moves us….. and we get scared.  We hold back.  We entrench.  

I think there are many reasons.  I tried to think about the reasons I have often been afraid to really open up to God’s call for my life, God’s leading, God’s power!  Sometimes there is a fear of what God is asking for.  God’s call can be costly sometimes.  We might have to give up things…Go against some of our own deeply held dreams, in order to go with God.  Most of it, I think,  has to do with vulnerability! Sometimes I’m afraid that I’ll fail- there is that deep seated fear that I’m just not enough.  Aren’t spiritual enough, talented enough, deep enough. 

At other times there is a fear of exposure.  Doing god’ work requires openness, honesty. We can’t fake it.  Can’t pretend.  Can’t act together when we are not.  Can’t pretend we have the answers when we don’t.  What is it for you?  It’s worth a thought. 

But lets get back to Zeke… Zechariah was fearful.  He hesitated.  In fact he never did say, “Yes” to God.  But in the end?  God made something happen.  That is the way God is.  In spite of ourselves, God uses us

It is amazing how God can break through fear, efforts to hold back, unwillingness – and accomplish incredible things.  We need to understand what God can do with human inadequacy.  We have to banish the myth that God works only through strength.  That God uses only the talented, the special, the strong… not so.

Look at the Christmas story.  Zechariah, priest of little faith.  Elizabeth the barren.  Mary the young.  Joseph the simple and uneducated.  Shepherds, dirty and rejected…all them are limited, marginal – and all of them are important. All of them are used by God.  And the result, something incredible emerges.

Nine months later Zechariah, who has been through terrible times, who has been mute, puzzled, humiliated, tossed and battered, now holds in his arms a little bundle of joy - John, soon to be the John the Baptist.  The forerunner of the Christ.

In spite of fear, silence, frustration.  Though tired and reluctant servants

God carried out his plan, and fear blossomed into joy!  So it was.  So it can be.  To each of us the call of God will come. To each of us the Spirit of the Lord will speak, and God will say… “I have a plan, and you are a part of it.”

And the slightest opening is there  -- if there is the smallest bit of receptiveness in our heart – perhaps even if there is not - God’s transforming power will do its work.  And in spite of ourselves  --  Our greed, selfishness, lack of vision, feeble faith, weaknesses, our fear… God will work his purpose out, and there will be joy!

More on forgiveness

Forgiveness is essential for our spiritual healing. When we are willing to be forgiven, and to forgive, we are saying that there is something bigger in our lives than our hurt. When we don’t forgive, we tend to give the bulk of our attention to how we have been hurt. We focus on the things that are painful. Clearly our wounds need attention. But when we concentrate on our hurt, we learn to see the brokenness, losses, or injures we have been given as the most important things in our lives. We cultivate an attention to these wounds in such a way that over time they come to occupy the most important place in our heart.Our wound lives at the center of our heart. And this poisons our heart. We cannot love. We cannot move forward. We are in a state of profound dis-ease.

Miguel Ruiz, the author of the “Four Agreements” reminds us of our need to forgive, for our own spiritual sake, in his book “The Mastery of Love”. He writes. “There is no other way but forgiveness to clean the wounds of all the poison. You must forgive those who hurt you, even if whatever they did to you is unforgiveable in your mind. You will forgive them not because they deserve to be forgiven (I might add any more than your deserve to be forgiven), but because you don’t want to suffer and hurt yourself every time you remember what they did."

>This is a hard task… forgiving other. Maybe almost as difficult as forgiving ourselves.

Visionaries Wanted

I have been reading a wonderful little book by Brennan Manning called "Ruthless Trust."  In that book he makes a wonderful provocative comment.  "Sacred scripture is too important to be left exclusively to biblical scholars.  Theology is too vital to be consigned solely to the province of theologians.  To explore the depths of the God who invites our trust, we need the artists and mystics."

To that I would add, and farmers, teachers, housewives, househusbands, electricians, and . . . . well you get the idea.  Recently some of the most powerful spiritual lessons I have gained have come not from sophisticated intellectuals, or written profundities, but from people whom I have found in my path, day by day.

The other day my brother-in-law Dan was diagnosed with ALS.  My mother died of a variant of this illness almost 20 years ago.  I know how hideous this illness can be.  And so does Dan.  On Easter Sunday I went out to have dinner with he and my sister.  We were talking and I was prepared with all kinds of theological wisdom and pastoral insight.  I asked Dan how he was doing and he replied.  "Fine.  I am not focusing on death, but Sue and I are just going to live as much as we can!"   Wow!

Later than same week I was talking to an older woman.  She has had more than her fair share of tragedy and sorrow, and for her life is never easy.  We were talking about prayer and she was talking about her many family members who are in crisis. I said something about praying "for" them, and she startled me by saying "I never pray for people."  When I hear someone say they are praying for someone, I think it means that they have decided what is wrong with that person, or their situation, and that they believe they know what that person needs.  Then they start telling God how to act and behave. I don't know for sure what a person's needs are, or what wound is present in their heart.  And it is not my job to tell God what to do.  So I just place people in my prayers.  I say 'Oh, and God, there is John, or Jane, or, whomever. Be with them.' "  Again, wow.  I wish I had learned that in seminary.

Brennan had it right!  We need the artists and mystics, the farmers, the people who have the experience of God, and out of that experience, can whet our appetite for the divine.

Thank you my friends

A supposed theologian and scholar

Grace

Gerald May once wrote "grace threatens all my normalities"  It took me a while to get it.  But then,after time, that statement began to make sense.  Grace threatens all that I once thought was normal and true.  I threatens the way I look at the world.  At others.  At life.  Even at myself.  It has become normal, over 50 odd years (OK, its closer to 60) for me to think of myself as "not enough."  This is one of the great demons I must fight with on a regular basis.  That profound feeling that somehow I don't measure up.  But grace threatens this dysfunctional belief and says, "God loves me! God loves me.  God loves me.  God loves me!"    It is normal for me to look at certain people and think they are messed up harbingers of evil.  That they are hateful, or greedy. Alas, it is normal for me to find people I despise.  But grace  reminds me that these people were created in God's image, and God loves them as much as that saintly person I adore. Anne Lamott, in thinking about this says "it drives me crazy, that God seems to have no taste and no standards."  It drives me crazy too.  But when I am in the sphere of grace I remember it is a good thing.  That way God can love me too.

The amazing thing about grace is how is changes us.  Grace means you are in a totally different place than you were before.  Grace means you are in a place you could never have gotten to on your own.

If I am really honest, my old "normalities" are often pretty sad.  They are full of fear, prejudice, and selfishness.  I am so thankful, that God can challenge those old thoughts, feelings, values and beliefs, and move me into that new place where grace abounds.  I like the way Paul puts it in Ephesians 2.  "For it is by grace that you have been saved, though faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift from God - so that no one can boast.  For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  Now that is truly a "new normal."