Christmastide

December 31, 2017

Opening

It is not news that we are living through unsettled, troubling times. War and starvation; political and cultural oppression; climate crises; population explosion all contribute to the rising tide of suffering, for all life and the planet that sustains it. On the surface it seems like everything we value is threatened or coming apart. How can we cope? And how can our faith community help us stand faithfully in this turbulent time?

On this last day of 2023 I’d like to offer a few observations on this, focusing on hope, blessing, and the potential value of community.

A Ladder to the Light

As I started working on what to share this morning, the wisdom of Bishop Steven Charleston fell into my hands. He is a retired Episcopal Bishop of Alaska and Choctaw elder and who offered a homily at the National Cathedral on the first Sunday of Advent. (The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston – Washington National Cathedral) Thanks to an alert from Brenda, Marjory and I were able to tune in. It was inspiring for me to hear his deep understanding of the common foundation of his Christian and Native American faith.

Then, I was delighted and not surprised, when Santa left me two of Bishop Charleston’s books under our Christmas Tree: The Four Vision Quests of Jesus, and Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder’s Meditations on Hope and Courage.

Reading about the Ladder of Light as I sat with our scripture lessons for this week gave me some fresh ideas about Seekers Church as we celebrate the birth of Jesus and wait for good news to sprout from the mud in these troubled times.

Bishop Charleston calls us to action. From his Native American perspective, he sees these days as a time in the dark interior of the “kiva,” a sacred space for ritual rebirth, where new understanding and recommitment can grow out of the painful unknown. He says:

It is a symbol for our shared future. It tells us that if we’re in a time of darkness, we need not be afraid of it, because it is only the beginning for us. In other words: we have been down this spiritual road before. The kiva tells us we have been through this process of birth and rebirth more than once. As a people, we have entered into darkness before, only to emerge into light. Ladder to the Light, p3.

Bishop Charleston reminds us that the only way to get out of the kiva is to climb the ladder into the light. He describes that “ladder to the light” as having eight rungs, each of which represents an important element in supporting our faith journey, out of the darkness of chaos and despair into a new season of opportunity and hope. Here are the “rungs” of renewal he describes: Faith, Blessing, Hope, Community, Action, Truth, Renewal and Transformation.

I think each rung is worth our attention, but I don’t have the time, or the mental capacity, to dig into each of them here. The book might be fuel for a class in our School for Christian Growth, though. Today I’d like to offer a few reflections on three of the “rungs” in Bishop Charleston’s Ladder to the Light: community, blessing and hope.

Community: Waiting for the Light Together

At Seekers we are committed to being a creative and inclusive community as we work for peace and justice. This is the opposite of so much we see around us, including the recent legal actions against restorative affirmative action as well as violent racism at many, many levels.

Over the past 48 years we have worked to stand together as we support one another planting and weeding the seeds of peace and justice at any level within our reach. It’s been a commitment to community – standing together – working to include all even when we feel hurt and can’t agree.

Nurturing the seeds of just hope in different seasons involves more than harvesting the fruit. Just now we seem to be waiting in the dark, seeds planted, perhaps, but only sketchy signs of sprouting hope.

Since we began as a separate family of faith following Jesus on the Way we’ve been committed to supporting each other as we seek God’s call on our lives. Our call as a church says:

Our call is to be a “Seekers community” which comes together in weekly worship rooted in the Biblical faith, with shared leadership; and disperses with a common commitment to understand and implement Christian servanthood in the structures in which we live our lives. … For us, Christian servanthood is based on empowering others within the normal structures of our daily lives (work; family and primary relationships; and citizenship) as well as through special structures for service and witness.

In some important ways, we are like seeds or bulbs, planted in the cold, wet ground, waiting for something new. These seeds and bulbs do not look like the flowers and fruit they came from, images that rest warm and delightful in our memories. As the season matures, those flowers and fruit will rise again as the life of creation enlivens their DNA.

The season is changing on the earth. Our days are getting longer again, at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere. Tomorrow there will be 1 minute more daylight than today. By mid-March each day will; be almost 5 minutes longer than the day before! “The times, they are a-changin’.” We are living into Spring again, but we need to wait.

New Year’s Day is a marker of the turning season. In many dimensions of agriculture, and “homoculture” this is time to make a commitment to look forward, searching for signs of hope. But how to hold to that commitment in the midst of so much mud?

Fear and chaos are the cold, wet earth where we are planted. How can we wait for the good news in these troubled times? How can we find ways to work for peace and justice in welcoming, inclusive ways?

As I wondered, part of the Ferlenghetti poem that is our reflection for this day struck me in a fresh way. He says:

Christ climbed down from His bare Tree this year
and softly stole away into some anonymous Mary’s womb again
where, in the darkest night of everybody’s anonymous soul

He awaits again, an unimaginable and impossibly

Immaculate Reconception, the very craziest of Second Comings

“Unimaginable!” That’s certainly true. What can we do to imagine the shape of what is coming? When we moved here to Carroll Street almost 20 years ago, things were different. I couldn’t imagine what things would be like today around the block OR around the world. I was committed to keeping our vibrant family of faith alive and healthy, which all-too-easily translated into “just as it was.” But the times, they have been changing. Now, as new apartment buildings rise up around us, and apartment buildings in Gaza and Ukraine are destroyed by missiles and drones, I’m confused about the path ahead. What’s the best way to support God’s call on us, as individuals and as a community, buried here in the cold, wet earth as we wait for the light to return?

As you recall, our name came from an essay by Robert Greenleaf, speaking to the critical need for prophetic voices. You can find it in the early pages of the Guide to Seekers Church:

I now embrace the theory of prophecy which holds that prophetic voices of great clarity, and with a quality of insight equal to that of any age, are speaking cogently all of the time. Men and women of a stature equal to the greatest of the past are with us now, addressing the problems of the day, and pointing to a better way … to live fully and serenely in these times. The variable that marks some periods as barren and some as rich in prophetic vision is in the interest, the level of seeking, the responsiveness of the hearers. … Prophets grow in stature as people respond to their message. If their early attempts are ignored or spurned, their talent may wither away. It is seekers, then, who make prophets, and the initiative of any one of us in searching for and responding to the voice of contemporary prophets may mark the turning point in their growth and service.

Robert Greenleaf, Servant Leadership, page 22

A Guide to Seekers Church – Seekers Church

How can I help listen into speech the prophets among us? They’re here, working for peace and justice in creative, inclusive ways:

Eyes to See, Ears to Hear Peace Prayer mission group
CreatureKind ministry team
Racial & Ethnic Justice ministry team
Community financial support for
- Museum of the Palestinian People
- New Story Leadership
- PAVA (Aid for Guatemala Highland Communities)
- Manna
- N Street Village

How can I help?

Blessing: Strength from the Holy Spirit

Our Gospel lesson for this week lifts up a sense of hope in dark times. The story from Luke of the blessing of the newborn Jesus by Anna and Simeon. These two elders recognized in the infant Jesus the potential transformation that his presence would embody. They see in Jesus a new reality and offer prophetic blessings.

The fact that Mary and Joseph were amazed by these blessings suggests to me that they were important support for Mary and Joseph to take in the idea of the incarnation as a gift from God, helping them move forward to serve as Jesus’ parents.

How can we bless one another? How can we recognize the emergence of gifs and talents in one another to encourage the other to step up to claim Gods call? How can we offer a blessing?

We can listen carefully and share what we hear in supportive, affirming ways. This deep listening is often an element of spiritual companionship. We see it twinkle when we offer a ribbon and prayer to someone stepping into a new commitment. And we can watch for opportunities to give voice to new life sprouting forth in another. This week the lection from Isaiah reminds us that “… the earth brings forth its shoots, and … a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up…” Blessings of the Holy Spirit, offered by others in our community, are important supports for us as call emerges from the mud. Blessing conveys the strength to rise up out of the mud and begin to share our little lights of hope for peace with justice.

Blessing might be seen as “just-in-time delivery” of strength, from the Holy Spirit to the sprout.

The blessing of the newborn Jesus by Anna and Simeon illustrates the power of blessing to support the emergence of God’s call. It shows a way for us as individuals to support the emergence of call by deep, heartfelt listening.

Hope: A Mix of Faith and Blessing

Hope Is the third rung of the ladder to the light. Bishop Charleston says:

Hope is what emerges when you mix faith with blessing. I am not talking about wishful thinking [he says.] I am not talking about miracles. I am talking about hope as a tool to create light, a spark that can suddenly illuminate the gloom that creeps into our lives. The reason we have faith as the tinder and blessing as the spark is so we can have hope – the first flame of light in the darkness.

Ladder to the Light, p. 58.

For me, hope is more about trust in God rather than getting what I (think I) want. It’s a joyful submission to the will of God.

From our early days here at Seekers Church we have tried, sometimes more effectively than others, to be welcoming and inclusive, to ignite and lift up little lights of hope in different places. Waiting together has made it a little bit easier to keep our lamps trimmed and shining.

More than 30 years ago I was given a hopeful image of our community. It rolled out of my pen as a large palindrome, one of those texts that reads both ways.

I ran across it the other day and felt like it shared a glimpse of Seekers Church that was held together by the rungs of Bishop Charleston’s ladder to the light. I’ll offer the first part here as an illustration of hope for us. The full poem will be posted with this sermon on Seekers’ website.:

A Dream of Seekers

In our community

The life of Christ,

That sense of Immanent Creation,

Is the vision bringing us

Together in one body.

Seekers,

Looking for the Holy Spirit here,

An inner voice that guides,

Becoming church that celebrates diversity;

An image of the world

United by

A common understanding.

The love of God

Calls forth our gifts and pains,

The brick and mortar of the future.

The brick and mortar of the future will take some gentle cultivation. I’ve been here awhile and have lived through times when I thought Seekers Church was the answer just as it was, one of those juicy, ripe grapefruit ready to savor. Other times like the dark times where we find ourselves some days, Seekers has seemed more like a little, bitter grapefruit seed, something ready for the compost bin.

But as I look around now, buried in the cold, wet earth of chaotic global crises, with the “unimaginable and impossibly Immaculate Reconception, the very craziest of Second Comings” close behind us, I take hope in the image of this family of faith as a tiny seed being brought forth into a new season of human life. As I look around at the towers of concrete block fire escapes rising up on all sides, with over 1,800 new housing units sprouting within 600 feet of where I stand, I wonder what our DNA will manifest as the cold, wet earth brings it forth.

Last week the builders working next door installed a temporary ramp from the parking lot up to the back porch, designed to restore access until they fully restore the ramp we lost as they dug the foundation for the new condo next door. When I first saw it, I had the sense of the earth bringing forth a shoot, to help us grow into the new season that is dawning.

What lies ahead? God only knows, but we can bless each other in this community, and help keep hope alive.

Closing

As I close, here are three things I hope you’ll ponder:

Community is a space where we can learn how to celebrate our diversity as we discover the joy of working together for just peace.
Blessing can be a direct delivery of God’s transformational love to a sprouting prophet. Each of us can serve as that empowering channel of God’s love. Listen for the opportunity.
Bishop Charleston says that hope is the spark that can light the tinder of faith, making a light to sow the way in the darkness. Our commitment to foster close community gives fertile ground for seeds of hope to grow. How can you add your energy to nurture this faith community … and those we seek to serve?

As we wait for the cold, wet ground to show forth those new sprouts of good news that have been bred for this time, let us step into the new year, helping each other stay open to Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s promise of Christmas:

[I]n the darkest night of everybody’s anonymous soul

[Jesus] awaits again, an unimaginable and impossibly

Immaculate Reconception, the very craziest of Second Comings.

Thank God we’re waiting together!

Amen.

A Dream of Seekers Church

In our community

The life of Christ,

That sense of Immanent Creation,

Is the vision bringing us

Together in one body.

Seekers,

Looking for the Holy Spirit here,

An inner voice that guides,

Becoming church that celebrates diversity;

An image of the world

United by

A common understanding.

The love of God

Calls forth our gifts and pains,

The brick and mortar of the future.

The brick and mortar of the future

Calls forth our gifts and pains-

The love of God.

A common understanding,

United by

An image of the world

Becoming church that celebrates diversity.

An inner voice that guides,

Looking for the Holy Spirit here.

Seekers

Together in one body

Is the vision bringing us

That sense of Immanent Creation,

The life of Christ

In our community.

Peter Bankson, circa1990