“Getting Ready for Incarnation” by Peter Bankson

SCRIPTURE

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Luke 21:25-36

INTRODUCTION

This year our Advent theme is an invitation to celebrate not just the birth of Baby Jesus, but the incarnation of the Creator. Our reflection paragraph says it this way:

Perhaps the hardest thing to remember about Christmas is this. It celebrates the incarnation, not just the nativity. The incarnation is an on-going process of salvation, while the nativity is the once-for-all-historical event of Bethlehem. We do not really celebrate Christ’s ‘birthday,’ remembering something that happened long ago. We celebrate the stupendous fact of the incarnation, God entering our world so thoroughly that nothing has been the same since.

What will it take for us to recognize, claim and live more fully into the reality that God, the Creator, is alive and present in every rock and bone, in every drop of water and the blood of every living part of this reality?

What can we do to get ready, in these troubled times, for the deeper revelation that every thought and thing is part of the Creator?

As we look at the dismaying depth of trouble all around us, it makes me wonder: Are WE in trouble, or just everybody else?

Two weeks ago, Pat shared his conclusion that we are. He said:

Pat closed with this challenge: “What mistakes is Seekers making because of its strengths?”

I confess that this Word from Pat was hard for me to hear… at first. But as I’ve worked with it, one thing that has become a bit clearer for me is this: If Christianity is becoming more and more of a minority, and if Seekers Church is, as it has long been, a minority within American Christianity, then we might take some lessons about our place in this time from the experiences of other minority communities who have learned to live in this time and place, working for peace and justice from within a dismissive, intolerant system.

This idea, that we really are a minority, led me into a cloudy valley of guilt and grievance:

increase and abound in love for one another and for all,” as Paul urges the church in Thessalonica in our Epistle lesson for this week?

That cloudy valley of guilt and grievance is for me a place of strategic confusion, a place where I know that I don’t know. It’s a place where I’ve convinced myself that my instincts won’t lead me in the right direction. For me, as for many of us, those are often places of disregard or denial. I felt my feet stumbling on that familiar rocky road. And as I thought about the commitment I’d made to be here now, offering you “the Word as I have heard it,” I was not enthusiastic. I wanted to share about getting ready to celebrate the wonderful reality of the incarnation of God “in us, and around us, and through us,” and here I was, stuck in the valley of the shadow of confusion.

The week after listening to Pat’s sermon I entered into a reflective place. I was aware of a heavy undercurrent of not knowing. Then came last Sunday, and our unexpected time of worship. Somehow, the musical celebration Jesse orchestrated sounded a trumpet call of hope through my strategic fog. His conversion of our prayer of commitment into a chant drew my attention to the part about confession and forgiveness:

We’ve offered that prayer regularly since Dave Lloyd urged us to add it to the prayer based on our commitment statement. But I confess that in some ways it’s a challenge for me. It’s a challenge for me to recognize, let alone confess, when I have hurt another. I try hard to do what’s right, and usually feel pretty good about what happens. But I really don’t take criticism very well. And it’s even harder for me to acknowledge the way others have hurt me. My standard approach is to let the critic sitting on my right shoulder tell me, “Peter, You’re big and strong (and healthy and pretty well-off.) Get over it.” So my response to Jesse’s sermon was an opportunity for some deeper reflection and insight.

As love would have it, shortly after worship last Sunday an epiphany emerged from my life here in community. I’m taking Dave Lloyd’s class in the School of Christian Living, where we’re looking at Paul’s letters to the scattered churches. We’ve been focusing on some of the reasons why Paul might have written as he did to particular communities, given what he knew about the dynamics of their life together.

I wondered how the sharp tone of the truth we shared in the library that night might be opening my ears to something new. That conversation helped give me find the courage to step into what feels like a vulnerable place, to share an emerging idea that just might resonate with you as we head into this Advent season.

We need to deal with the reality that as a tiny, inclusive, non-denominational, creative Christian Church working for peace and justice, we are a minority people. As a minority people God calls us to tune ourselves up in the “Key of Compassion” and Sing ‘til the power of the Lord comes down.

I don’t see the change we’re facing as a big change in WHO we are. But it does feel like a sizable change in HOW we are … with one another. Somehow, we’ll need to deepen the already deep trust among many of us to the point where we can take our confession and forgiveness to a deeper level.

But I think that if some of us begin a more conscious practice of forgiveness, we’ll notice the difference and find it easier to tune in. I noticed that last Sunday. Once someone started to move to the music, others joined in, hesitant at first, but with increasing energy as the Spirit moved through us.

Here’s the idea:

Our Advent theme this year is Getting Ready. The bulletin cover offers a different sort of Advent calendar, one with what I might call “seeds of hope” for each day between now and Christmas. I wonder how we might use it as part of an Advent practice of getting ready for God with Us.

The images from last Sunday were strong: Jesse invited us to sing and dance and give ourselves to the rhythm and harmony of new tunes. That suggested a fresh way for me to think about getting ready for the incarnation of the Holy One throughout all Creation. But … a music metaphor? From me? At least I know my limitations when it comes to music. But, since I’m no musician, I thought that it might be easier for me to admit my shortcomings in a place like this. So if it works at all, I’ll count on you to make it better.

I’d like to look at three phases in this process of getting ready for change:
- RECOGNIZE OUR RESISTANCE
  
  The world is in a mess. Global climate-change threats and fear-based terrorism consume our attention. The national political turmoil and fear-based discrimination engage or repel us, often diverting us from looking for solutions to bigger problems. Community tensions over our future are challenging the quiet sense of our identity. Our lessons for the week point to earlier times like these.
  
  We’re called to recognize we’re out of tune. And, we need to acknowledge our resistance to change.