The Power of Empathy: Dr Brene Brown
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Shady Ladies, Forgotten Stories, and Images of God: Casualties of Our Advent Lectionary
In the preface to her beautiful children’s book, “But God Remembered: Stores of Women from Creation to the Promised Land” Jewish writer Sandy Eisenberg Saso tells this revealing story:
“Before God created man and woman, God wanted to create Memory and Forgetfulness. But the angels protested.
The angel of Song said, ‘Do not create Forgetfulness. People will forget the songs of their ancestors.’
The Angel of Stories said, ‘If you create Forgetfulness, man and woman will forget many good stories.’ The Angel of Names said, ‘Forget songs? Forget stories? They will not even remember each other’s names.’
God listened to the complaints of the angels. And God asked the angels what kinds of things they remembered.
At first, the angels remembered what it was like before the world was formed. Then as the angels talked about the time before time existed, they recalled moments when they did not always agree.
One angel yelled at another, ‘I remember when your fiery sword burned the hem of my robe!’
‘And I remember when you knocked me down and tore a hole in my wing,’ screamed another.
As the angels remembered everything that ever happened, their voices grew louder and louder and louder until the heavens thundered.
God said, ‘FORGET IT!’
And there was Forgetfulness.
All at once the angels forgot why they were angry at each other and their voices became angelic again. And God saw that it was good.
God said, “There are some things people will need to forget.’
The angels objected. ‘People will forget what they should remember.’
God said, ‘I will remember all the important things. I will plant the seeds of remembrance in the soul of My people.’
And so it was that over time people forgot many of the songs, stories and names of their ancestors.
But God remembered.”
As we approach the Third Sunday of Advent, I can’t help wondering why the creators of the Revised Common Lectionary (the list of prescribed readings for Sunday worship) have failed to remember the stories and names of our foremothers? John the Baptist will strut across the stage again in this Sunday in churches all over the planet. We have begun a new cycle in the RCL in what is know as Year A the lectionary Gospel readings will focus upon readings from the Gospel according to Matthew. But followers of the RCL will not hear the names of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, or Bathsheba; no, not even Mary will put in an appearance despite the fact that all of these women are mentioned in the very first chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew! Last year was the same even though the RCL focussed upon the Gospel according to Luke, neither of the women of the Luke’s first chapter make an appearance without a great deal of effort. Unless worship planners are prepared to tinker with the lectionary Elizabeth and Mary will have to cede the stage to John the Baptist. So, all you worship planners and preachers out there, I say to you, “TINKER AWAY! TELL THE STORIES!” Continue reading
Enough of John the Baptist Already! a sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent
In addition to Isaiah 11:1-10 and Matthew3:1-2, the readings today included Maya Angelou’s poem “His Day Is Done: a Tribute to Nelson Mandela“. I am indebted to Glynn Cardy for much of this sermon and we are both indebted to John Dominic Crossan and Robert Funk for providing historical perspective.
His Day Is Done
I set my prepared sermon aside. It just doesn’t seem appropriate to gather for worship and not mark the passing of a giant. As I work to find the words to praise the One who inspired Nelson Mandela, memories of the struggle engaged long-distance looking toward a prison cell for inspiration. A friend sent word of Maya Angelou’s tribute. “Thank-you. We will not forget. We will not dis-honour you…..We will remember and be glad that you lived among us.”
Low Down Dirty Christmas
Playing for Change
St. Nicholas Is Too Old and Too Tired to Defeat the Selling Power of Santa Claus!
Today, the Feast of St. Nicholas, the ancient precursor to the modern Santa Claus, will pass without much ado. Some will try to encourage us to resurrect St. Nicholas to save us all from Santa’s powers for we have gone astray. To those well meaning souls who would rid Christmas of its flagrant consumerism, I can only offer up a feeble, “Baa Humbug!”
The very best traditions about St. Nicholas suggest that he was a protector of children while the worst tradition has him providing dowries so that young girls could be married off by their father rather than be sold into slavery. Meanwhile, the modern character Santa Claus grooms children to take up their role as consumers in the cult materialism. Some parents may bemoan the little gimmie-monsters that their children become, but most adults are rendered helpless by our own remembered indoctrinations and so we join in what we choose to deem as harmless fun.
T’is the season for contradictions. ‘Tis the season when we prepare to celebrate the incarnation of God in human form while also waiting for Santa Claus to come down our chimneys. Face it; most of the folks dashing about in the malls are more worried about the imminent arrival of Santa Claus than they are about God. I’d even go so far as to say that a good number of people have unconsciously substituted Santa Claus for God. Santa Claus and the baby Jesus get into some pretty fierce competition at this time of year; and in the culture the larger loyalty belongs to Santa.
Besides, I don’t believe that consumerism is the most dangerous thing about Santa. So, before you accuse me of being a Scrooge or even a Grinch, ask yourself who it is that most children worship at this time of year, and I think you’ll agree that Santa is the one we’ve all been trained to bow down to, and not just at Christmas. It is difficult to deny that sometimes our view of God has been more influenced by Santa Claus than by Christ? I dare you to compare the number of children standing in the lines at the shopping centre to get their picture taken on Santa’s lap to the number of children in Sunday School? So many of us made that same trip to see Santa when we were little and when we finally got to Santa’s lap, he asked us the big Judgement Day question that Santa always seems to ask, “Have you been good this year?” There’s only one way to answer that question – even though we may have been as deviousness might qualify us as servants of that other mythical character that begins with santa and ends with n. For all too many people this laptop confession begins a pattern for interactions with an image we create of the Father-God, who watches and records our offences, making a list if only for the purpose of forgiving us because an appropriate blood sacrifice has been made on our behalf.
Think I’m being harsh? Just listen to that song that pours from muzak speakers, the song that spells out a theology of Santa Claus. “Oh, you better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout. I’m telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town. He knows when you’ve been sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake. He’s making a list, checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice. Santa Claus is coming to town.” The trouble with the theology of Santa Claus is that we keep applying it to God as we try to turn the Creator of all that is and ever shall be into a list-checking, gift-giver, whom we better watch out for, lest we be punished. Why then are we surprised that when our Santa-god fails to deliver or bad things happen to good people, that our childish faith in the Santa-god isn’t enough to sustain our trust?
Santa in his present incarnation is indeed pernicious, but like most mythical characters, he cannot be killed and any attempts to resurrect St. Nicholas to replace him are doomed, for the power of Santa’s materialism will always defeat the dim memories of St. Nicholas and his chocolate money. If we are going to break free of the cult of materialism, perhaps we out to try to convince Santa to use his mythical powers for goodness sake!
Yeah, that’s right, I’m going to say it, it’s time to let old St. Nick and his young assistant Santa die, so that a new Santa can be born; a Christmas resurrection if you will. We need a new Santa capable of changing our consuming ways. If the Coca Cola Company could use the advertising industry to transform St. Nick into Santa, surely we can resurrect Santa using the modern persuasive powers of social media to redesign the old salesman extraordinaire into a mythical character with powers fit for the needs of this century.
SANTINA- all decked out in her Advent blue!
Imagine if you will, a new and improved Santina, all decked out in Advent blue, she has the power to open young minds to the needs of our neighbours and travels the world via her magic transporter beam, to gather the hopes and dreams of the poor and oppressed into one internet feed, which she magically imprints in our hearts and minds, so that we change the world, creating peace through justice!
Oh, wait, we already have such a character. We don’t need St. Nicholas or Santa Claus, nor any new-fangled Santina. We need the One we’ve always needed. The One who comes in the guise of a person. The One we seek is Christ. The One who lives and breathes in, with, and through us to create peace on earth through justice and love. The One who uses our hands, our feet, our lives to change the world!
Enjoy this version of Let There Be Peace on Earth in which Vanessa Williams uses not only inclusive language, but celebrates the Earth as our Mother!
The Three Deadliest Words in the World: It’s a Girl
A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more. (Jeremiah 31:15)
Gendercide somewhere in the recesses of my sub-conscious, I know it is happening. From time to time, the horror rises to the level of my conscious awareness and unable to bear the reality, I quickly move on, burying the obscenity once again. After watching Evan Grae Davis’ documentary “The Three Deadliest Words in the World: It’s a Girl” the sheer magnitude of the reality cannot be contained in the caverns of my sub-conscious. I want to weep, wail, shout and scream! Gendercide is the systematic
killing of members of a specific sex and it is happening in epic proportions to women all over the world. It’s a Girl focuses on the hundreds of millions of girls who are being killed in India and China. The numbers are staggering! Between the abortion of female fetuses, infanticide, neglect, and murder women are being killed in incomprehensible numbers. Lest we think this only happens in the developing world, the Canadian Medical Association Journal is calling for an end to sex identification via ultrasound in order to curb the practice of selective abortion in ethnic communities in Canada.
Evan Grae Davis reveals that, “More girls have been killed in the last fifty years simply because they are girls than all the people who were killed in the first and second World Wars combined. More girls have been killed in the last decade than in all the major genocides of the 20th century combined.” It’s a Girl is not an easy documentary to watch but a vital film to watch. Below you can watch the documentary’s director Evan Grae Davis discuss his own experience of making the film.
After watching the documentary, I wonder what we can do to help put an end to this horrendous atrocity. We celebrate the stories of those who refused to turn a blind eye and stepped in at considerable risk to save their neighbours from the Nazis and we have prayed that we too would have demonstrated similar courage. So, why then do we allow gendercide to continue? How is it that this atrocity continues to be relegated to our collective subconscious? Cultural change is not easy, especially if we are unwilling to look at what is happening. Bearing witness is just the beginning. If you are reading this blog, then you have the wherewith all to download and watch the movie ($12.99 on iTunes). Then we will need to be about the work of removing the log from our own eyes, so that we can begin to help our neighbours.
We Need New Words to Praise the Silent Night Cosmically!
Silent night, holy night is a perennial favourite! T’is the season for nostalgia. But what if we are serious about providing more than nostalgia in our worship? Can we, or do we even dare to offer worshippers new images that endeavour to engage our reality? Can we touch the spiritual but not religious crowds that wander into our sanctuaries seeking an encounter with the Mystery we call God, with a hint of our unknowing. Or are we content to address only the nostalgia seekers with safe images designed only to warm and not excite the imagination? Dare we beckon the nostalgia seekers beyond their memories toward the future? I wonder? Maybe we can summon up the courage to compromise by simply adding a few new verses?
The challenge belongs to all of us to write new words to enable us to sing our praise with integrity. Here’s a sample, with thanks to Keith Mesecher.
Keep Watch: John the Baptist, Like Christ Has Many Disguises!
There was a young woman who lived in an apartment, in a very rough neighbourhood. It was the east end of a very large city. Many of the people who lived in this neighbourhood got by on welfare, others earned their living any way they could. The young woman moved into the apartment because it was close to the office where she worked, the rent was cheap and quite frankly she was young and foolish. She ignored all the warnings of her family and friends and moved into the apartment convinced that she could handle anything that came her way.
Her neighbourhood contained the most unsavoury of characters. The office where she worked was just down the street from her apartment and every morning as she walked to work she would meet some of her neighbours returning home from an evening of plying their trade on the streets and in the alleys. Each morning, she would be met at the entrance to her office by an old man named Ed.
Ed had been living on the streets for years. He was very hairy, very dirty, and he tended to rant and rave a lot. Ed was a wild man. He slept on the doorstep of the young woman’s office because it was somewhat protected from the winter weather. Even though Ed made the young woman nervous, she got used to seeing him in her way.
Ed always gave the young woman a warm welcome when she arrived. He knew that when she got inside, she would brew fresh coffee. He used to tease her that, she was a sucker for a sad face as he waited patiently for her to bring him a cup of coffee. They never talked much, though. Ed would just rant and rave about the injustices of the world. The young woman never found out how Ed ended up on the streets. She didn’t know how he spent his days. Continue reading
An Insidious Idol – Meister Eckhart
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Advent Blue
Many thanks to the blog follower who, after reading this morning’s posting, reminded me of Peter Mayer’s hymn to our Blue Boat Home. It sure puts a whole new hue in my perception of Advent Blue!
REPENT! TURN AROUND! REPENT! Become the Prophet Crying For the Wilderness! – a sermon preached on the Second Sunday of Advent when John the Baptist Cries
I didn’t know it at the time, but I actually met John the Baptist when I was fifteen years old. She didn’t look much like you’d imagine John the Baptist would look, but she had that same crazy intensity, that same focus on the fact that we’d better change our ways, we’d better repent, and start doing things differently or we’d be in real serious trouble. Lola was my friend Valerie’s mother and she simply couldn’t stop going on and on about the environment and how we were destroy the earth. At the time, I remember thinking she was a bit of a nut-case and on more than one occasion I wished she’d just shut up about it. I was just a kid, and the earth was just something I took for granted. The earth was just there to provide for our needs. I couldn’t believe how much Lola went on and on about all the stuff we humans were doing to destroy the earth. I just wished she’d leave us along to get on with things, I couldn’t abide her incessant nonsense about how we were going to destroy the planet. All her feeble little attempts to be kind to the earth, made me seriously question her sanity.
I tolerated Lola not just because she was my friend’s mother, but I didn’t really understand her until one day when the three of us were travelling together. We were coming home from church. I had only been going to church for a few months. I was trying hard to understand this whole God thing. So, I went to church a lot. My friend Valerie had persuaded me to start going to church with her and family had become like my second family as they supported me during my first attempts to explore the mysterious world into which I had begun to feel pulled. As we drove home from church, I was feeling a little glum. Try as I might, I couldn’t really understand this church thing; all that singing and praying didn’t really help me to feel closer to God. Mostly I just liked how people at church treated each other. I liked how they went out of their way to help me feel at home. Whether or not God was there, well I really wasn’t sure.
Anyway, we were driving along the road. It was a partly over-cast day on the west coast of British Columbia, just a few clouds. You could see the mountains off in the distance. We were chatting back and forth when all of a sudden Lola pulled the car over to the far side of the road, switched off the engine and got out. Valerie followed her mother out of the car, so I figured I had better do the same. Val and her mother scampered down from the road and onto the beach. When they reached the water’s edge, they stopped and just looked off into the distance. Apart from a tanker-ship making its way across the horizon, I couldn’t see much of anything. Lola had the most amazing expression on her face. She positively glowed with happiness. Valerie wore a similar expression. I must have looked somewhat puzzled because Val smiled at me and said, “Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you have ever seen?” This only confused me more. What were they looking at that had made them stop the car, scamper down the bank and stand there at the water’s edge on a cold autumn evening?
Maybe my parents were right, these religious types are a little bit weird. Happy, glowing, smiling people make me nervous. There they stood grinning from ear to ear. What were they on? And then, I saw it. For the first time in my life, I saw it. It had been there before. But I had never really seen it before. The sky was amazing. The colours were overwhelming. It almost didn’t look real. It looked like someone must have painted it that way. It was magnificent, a work of art, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!
If you’ve never seen a late October, Pacific Coast Sunset before, you’ve missed one of the great wonders of the world. Neither Emily Carr’s paintings nor picture perfect post cards do a western sunset justice. Believe it or not, even though I had been living on the west coast for about four years, at that point I had never before really noticed just how beautiful a sunset could be. No one in my experience had ever taken the time to stop and look at one. No one had ever pointed one out to me before. I would never have dreamed of stopping a car and getting out to watch as the sun put on a show while setting. So I stood there. Overwhelmed by it all. Amazed at just how beautiful it was. Wondering just who or what could be responsible for such a spectacular thing as this. Before long my thoughts drifted to the Creator. Suddenly this God, that I had been trying so hard to fathom, was there. Right there. Not just in the magnificence of the sunset, but right there on the beach. At that moment, I was just as sure of God’s presence as I was of my own. I remember an overpowering feeling of gratitude, gratitude for God’s presence, gratitude, because for the first time in all my life I was at home. I knew that I was home. Home, not because of the place; home not because of the beauty of the sunset, but home because of God’s presence. That longing that I had always felt; that longing that I have always labelled as homesickness, that over-powering longing was gone. In that glorious moment, the presence of God, filled my longing and I was at home.
I’m sure that each of you could tell of a similar experience. So many of us have been blessed by the presence of God in creation. So many of us have had our longing for God filled by the wonder and majesty of creation. I suspect that our love of creation comes as a direct result of our relatedness to creation. For like creation and everything in creation we share a common Creator. My own love affair with creation kicked into high gear on the beach gazing at the magnificence of the setting sun and it has grown in intensity over the years. This past summer, Carol and I drove out to Vancouver and I have to say, if you want to renew your love for creation, drive across this magnificent country of ours.
You’ll find yourself absolutely besotted with creation as you fall in love all over again. By the time we reached my beloved Rocky Mountains, it was like some star-crossed lover, who simply couldn’t help herself from bubbling over with excitement. Not even the first rainy day of our trip could dampen my excitement as we drove south from Jasper toward the Columbia Ice fields. I couldn’t wait to gaze upon the grandeur of the glacier that I remembered from so many visits over the years. The rain was falling quite heavily as we pulled into the massive parking lot perfectly situated across from the ice-field. As we climbed the steps toward the viewing station, I couldn’t see much because I’d pulled my hood up over my head to protect me from the rain. When I reached the top and looked across the highway, it took my breath away, the mass of ice that was frozen in my memory, was gone.
I’m not sure if the drops of water falling down my cheeks were raindrops or teardrops, as I stood there frozen by a strange mixture of fear and sadness. In the decades that have passed since I first began to visit the ice-fields back in the 1970’s the ice has been receding at a rate of between 10 and 15 centimeters per decade. 120 centimeters may not seem like a great distance, but couple that with a decrease in the thickness of the ice and it is positively shocking to see the amount of ice that has vanished from view.
Take a look at the iceberg that I asked Andrew to hang. This photograph was taken in a place I visited long ago. It’s a place were icebergs are born. I ended up there back in the days when I was in the travel business and ended up on a cheap Air Iceland flight that was delayed for a week in Reykjavík for a week. Back then Iceland’s airline must have had only two airplanes and when one of them suffered mechanical difficulties you literally had to wait around for them to fix it. It’s one of the reasons that flights were so cheap on Air Iceland. You simply never knew how long your stopover in Iceland might be. I was trapped there for a week and during that time we decided to explore some of the most amazing geological sites that the earth has to offer. We travelled about 400 kilometers outside of Reykavik to the Jokulsarlon Lagoon; the birthplace of glaciers. It was in this strange lagoon, under an eerie twilight that lasted for the entire duration of my stay in Iceland, that I stud on the hull of a small tourist vessel, staring up at a magnificent glacier. I have no words to describe my terror. Continue reading
Gazing Into the Vast Empty Darkness Reveals the Sacred Dimensions of the Cosmos
During the season of Advent, dwelling in the darkness becomes part of our discipline of waiting. Darkness is so revealing.
Has A Progressive Thief Stolen Advent and Christmas? A sermon for Advent One
Sometimes it feels like a progressive thief has stolen Advent and Christmas from us! Sometimes being a progressive Christian is about as sad as being a who down in Who-ville; why sometimes I even miss old Santa Claus himself and in my nostalgic haze, I long for a simpler time and faith! How are we supposed to celebrate Advent and look forward to the coming of Christ, when some of the best stories of the season never actually happened they way we’ve been lead to believe?
Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5, “Amazing Peace” by Maya Angelou, Matthew 24:36-44
Veni, Veni, Emmanuel
Hayley Westenra’s cover of this classic Advent hymn!
Emmanuel: God With Us. Emmanuel: God Is with us!
The Innovation of Loneliness
As we venture into the season of Advent, the disciplines of the season encourage us to step back from the hustle and bustle of our culture’s preparations for the holiday season. To prepare ourselves we are encouraged to slow down and spend time in silence and contemplation. I wonder how much our fear of being lonely when we are alone prevents us from embracing the darkness???
Dorothy Day: I will never call you a saint!
Dorothy Day is a shero of mine! But I will never call her a saint! The tradition of commemorating saints on the day of their death makes a today a day for celebrating Dorothy Day! But, Dorothy Day insisted, “Don’t call me a saint! I don’t want to be dismissed so easily!”
Dorothy Day died in 1980, at the age of 83. She was one of the greatest religious figures of the century, and one of the most paradoxical. She was a Catholic and she was an anarchist. She condemned poverty and she advocated it. She founded the Catholic Worker, a loose aggregation of ”houses of hospitality,” communal farms, newspapers and round-table discussions for ”further clarification of thought” — and called her memoirs ”The Long Loneliness.” The movement was wary of authority, yet revered her as its leader.
When she died, a multitude came down to the old dwelling off the Bowery to pay their respects, the way people had come to Catholic Worker houses for soup ever since the Depression. There were Catholic Workers, social workers, migrant workers, the unemployed; addicts, alcoholics, anarchists; Protestants, Jews and agnostics; the devout and the strident and the curious, there to see what a saint looked like.
On this day, I celebrate the life and witness of Dorothy Day a shero, a Christian mystic with all the attributes of a saint!
LEARNING TO WALK IN THE DARK – Barbara Brown Taylor
I have listened to these lectures several times. Each time Taylor leads me into the darkness something new is revealed. This week, I have been busy preparing for the Season of Advent fearful that I might not be able to capture the anticipation of the season. In a bit of a panic, I shut my eyes and saw the darkness pulsing with a kind of invitation to enter into the sacredness of the dark. So, after a long winter’s sleep, I awoke wondering if darkness itself might be the key to embracing Advent. Over a leisurely breakfast, Taylor’s musings on the power of darkness have opened me to a whole new vision of the wonders and mysteries of Advent.
Taylor spent fifteen years in parish ministry and was named one of the twelve most effective preachers in the English-speaking world by Baylor University in 1996. She became a professor of religion at Piedomont College in 1998 and also teaches spirituality at Columbia Seminary. Still a priest in the Episcopal church, Taylor has travelled the world in pursuit of sacred wisdom finding most of what she needed in her backyard.
These 3 lectures are rich in images as Taylor explores the “thick darkness” in which God dwells. The lectures were described as “a negative theology for emergents” and I do believe that progressive Christians would do well to revisit Brown’s mastery of mythic communication. So, if you are afraid of the dark, stumbling in the dark, or intrigued by the dark you will find in these lectures a familiar darkness in which lies beauty and wisdom. If you are a preacher, take the time to linger over Taylor’s images, you will be rewarded with inspiration. Linger over the richness of her words, you will not be dissapointed!
LEARNING TO WALK IN THE DARK – LECTURE 1
LEARNING TO WALK IN THE DARK – LECTURE 2 – Night Guides
LEARNING TO WALK IN THE DARK – LECTURE 3
Who is this Jesus for Whom We Wait?
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, Mary by Sallie Poet
As we enter Advent to await the coming of Christ, it is important for us to remember who Jesus was. I offer this snippet from an Advent sermon given by Bishop John Shelbly Spong on the first seventeen verses of the Gospel according to Matthew. After exploring the lives of the women the gospel writer includes in the genealogy of Jesus, Bishop Song invites us to re-think our image of Jesus. You can read a rough transcript of Bishop Spong’s sermon here There have been several Advent seasons when we have gone off lectionary in order to facilitate a re-thinking of our traditions. Using Matthew 1 as a gospel lesson has worked well for the first Sunday of Advent.
In this snippet, Bishop Spong invites us to re-think our image of God in light of our knowledge of Jesus.
You are the Bethlehem point.
Let the power of God in Christ enable you to live and to love and to be.
Let the God presence within you flow through you so that the love of God might
be known among all the people that God has created
and that God still loves.
Be the light and love of the world,
In the name of Yahweh, Christ, and Spirit, One
Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus. Amen.
Eternity: That Which Has No End and I Dare Say – No Beginning
If eternity is beyond the confines of time, then the definition of eternity is that which has no beginning and no end. As wayward snowflakes begin to fall, eventide on this December day promises a very long night. And I can’t help wondering about how long this soul of mine has been kicking around. Does this soul of mine have eternal life: life without beginning or end? I wonder? Does the stardust that continues to live in this body of mine point toward a limitless life? I wonder? But for now, the wayward snowflakes remind me of falling stars and the dust which I will one day return to with confidence. Enjoy!
pastordawn 