Readings: Isaiah 12: 2-6, Amos 8: 4-12, 2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practice deceit with false balances,
buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”

The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.
They shall wander from sea to sea, from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it. Amos 8:4-6, 11-12

When I was acting less than neighborly to my siblings, friends, or schoolmates, my parents would turn the Golden Rule into a question: how would you like it? These five words were often followed by if he/she/they did that to you? I didn’t like that question because it showed me how my behavior hurt someone else. It also taught me a basic truth: I am connected to those around me.

Our sacred writings move the Golden Rule beyond behavior: Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. Neighbor and God cannot be separated because the word of God to me is also and always the word of God to my neighbor. We are both children of God.

When all my thoughts are on making an extra buck by any means available, I become spiritually anorexic. If my greed forces my neighbor to go hungry, I become blind to the word of God only my neighbor can reveal to me. Who I am, who God is, and who my neighbor is are all related. If I pretend I can’t see the hunger and thirst of my neighbor, especially if I am part of its cause, I suffer a famine of the soul. No self help manual or mindfulness exercises will cure such a willful blindness. Either I see both God and neighbor, or I see neither.

I suspect the same is true for my neighbor.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

Readings: Psalm 126, Isaiah 19:18-25, 2 Peter 1:2-15

“When the Lord brought back
The captive ones of Zion,
We were like those who dream.” Psalm. 126.1

“On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. On that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.’” Isaiah 19: 23, 24.
More than one prophet from the major religious traditions, including the Dalai Lama, has said, “When there is peace among religions there will be peace in the world.” Yet there cannot be peace among religions so long as the religious fail to understand we are all in spiritual exile. The members of one tribe, brazenly putting on the mantle of the One True Tribe which has found the One True God, seem determined to convert all the other tribes to their own way of believing, even to the point of death. There is no winning the argument against such a proposition except to question the underlying assumptions that the tribe is asserting, but that only leads to anger and violence. Tribal consciousness demands that the tribe defend the boundaries and beliefs of its own group. And so, tribal warfare wages on today as it has for thousands of years.

The major traditions teach peace but it seems so few know the ways of their Redeemer or heed the words of their Prophets, which transcend tribal consciousness. Even those who are enlightened often slip back into their old patterns and ways of seeing and believing, which are entirely ego centered. As Br. David Steindl-Rast says, “Waking up is a continuous process.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “The joy of God (for Christians) has been through the poverty of the crib and the distress of the cross. It does not deny the distress where it is, but finds God in the midst of it, indeed precisely there. It does not contest the most egregious sin, but finds forgiveness in just this way. It looks death in the face, yet finds life in death itself.” The cross is the perfect metaphor for what the soul must go through to become fully human, as Eckart Tolle likes to say.

Until I am able to recognize and admit MY OWN negative emotional patterns and constant craving for security, power, control, attention, esteem, possession or even meeting the demands of my own tribe, I remain in spiritual exile, unable or unwilling to understand and accept another’s point of view. But if I meet my Christ precisely there, and allow the Source of all Being to spiritually heal me from the demands of my false self, over time I begin to find my heart center where the light of peace and love and joy dwells. When Christ consciousness forms in me then I am able to recognize and honor the Christ mystery in another, no matter his or her cultural or religious tradition.

There’s a story from “Tales of a Magic Monastery” by Theophane the Monk in which a group of people are questioning a wise old monk and he is providing sage advice. Finally someone asks, “Father, could you tell us something about yourself?” He leaned back. “Myself?” he mused. There was a long pause. “My name used to be …Me,” he answered. “But now it’s…You.”

“May our ears hear the Good. May our eyes see the Good. May we serve Him with the whole strength of our bodies. May we, all our life, carry out His will. May peace and peace and peace be everywhere.” (From the Mundaka Upanishad).

Offered by Bryan Fredrickson, gentle soul, interpreter of law, child of God.

Readings: Psalm 126; Isaiah 40:1-11; Romans 8:22-25

“Comfort, O comfort my people”, says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term…” Isaiah 40:1-2

Comfort who? Cry out about what and to whom? The basic concept for comfort in both the Old and New Testaments is encouragement, whether by word or presence in time of need. Synonymous words for comfort are console, help, give relief, cheer up, exhort, and fear not. Of course, I am called to comfort my neighbor who has placed his wife in a nursing home and the friend who needs support after surgery. But does this passage call me to more?

How can I bring comfort to the exiles of today – those fleeing oppression in Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, or those who feel separated from their church? Is prayer or a financial contribution enough or do I need to cry out? How do I cry out to prepare a way for God’s coming in 2015? Can I challenge people to resist the extreme commercialism of Christmas that makes a mockery of the true meaning of Jesus’ coming among us? Can I stop procrastinating in replacing my worn bumper sticker “Live simply that others might simply live?” Can I sign petitions that call for an end to unjust war or to the death penalty? Can I encourage people to learn the positions of presidential candidates and encourage them to make their choice based on a deeper understanding of Jesus’ exhortation in the Judgment of the Nations (Matthew 26:31-46).

I am reminded of the quote that has been attributed to many people – “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Can my small voice bring comfort and hope? Should my small voice challenge? How can my small voice say “here is your God?” Advent invites me to look at these questions anew and to be not afraid of what I see.

Come, Shepherd Jesus. Comfort and guide us.

Offered by Ann Fowler, spiritual director, hearer and speaker of the Good News.

Readings: Luke 1:68-79, Malachi 4:1-6, Luke 9:1-6

Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. He said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money – not even an extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there, and leave from there. Wherever they do not welcome you, as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” They departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere. Luke 9:1-6

We come into the world naked and without possessions; when we die, we take nothing with us. In between, we collect clothes and forks and skills. We settle into houses or apartments, learn to read and cook, and join our families and friends in this shared adventure called life. How easy would it be for us to leave it all behind, trusting the journey and the people we’ll meet on it, taking only companions by our sides and prayers in our hearts?

We don’t choose where we begin life. We enter and stay in whatever family we happen to be born into, and we leave childhood behind from there. If we’ve been blessed with adequate food, clothing, shelter, and a family who loves us well, we don’t carry much emotional baggage. If we’ve been without adequate food, clothing, shelter, or have a family who loves us in damaging ways, we carry the burden of pain with us wherever we go.

Jesus knew what burdens his twelve disciples carried, both small and large: insecurity, mistrust, grief, hatred, and fear. Before sending them out into the great big world, he gave them the best travel advice: don’t take anything that weighs you down. Travel lightly so your attention is on who and where you are, not on your luggage. Stay wherever you are welcome. When you aren’t welcome, leave that awful feeling behind you. 

I don’t think shaking the dust off our feet is so much a testimony against those who rejected us as much as it is a symbol of our firm belief that rejection is never the last word. Welcome awaits in other homes in this life, and in the Kingdom of God in the next. This is true, no matter where we start out, and such good news has the power to heal.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

Readings: Psalm 90; Numbers 17:1-11; 2 Peter 3:1-8a

So teach us to number our days that we get a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

...with the Lord one day is like a thousand years… 2 Peter 3:8a

I often enjoyed Andy Rooney’s closing moments on 60 Minutes. There is wisdom in his few words. He wrote a piece entitled You are the Best in which he listed the things he had learned: “I’ve learned…that the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.”

What is important for me to get done this Advent season? Some will recall how slowly time went by as a child in anticipation of Christmas day. How many shopping days until Christmas, being numbered daily in our local newspapers, simply crawled along as if each day were indeed a thousand years. Then we grow up and time starts marching, then galloping. There is never enough time, it seems; but unlike what Andy Rooney learned, we don’t seem to be getting more things done. We blink and it’s Christmas Eve – each day a thousand seconds. What’s going on here?

So I ponder again: what is important for me to get done this Advent? Not what is urgent, but what is important. It may be to hit the pause button on my chattering mind, with its unending to-do list, just long enough to breathe deeply and utter a prayer for guidance about what is really important. Maybe it is to pray personally with the psalmist: Teach me to number my days THAT I MAY GET A HEART OF WISDOM. After all, we don’t have much time – we only have all the time there is.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

Offered by Bill Albritton, writer, teacher, child of God.