November 27, 2016
Isaiah 2: 1-5
Advent I
Rev. Joy R. Haertig
“May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts, be acceptable in thy sight O God,
our strength and our redeemer.”
And so it begins – the season of Advent in here – the season of Christmas “out there”. The
season of waiting and reflection in here; the season of “get it now” out there. Perhaps with
both of these, we can ‘come round to a place just right’, a middle place in our own lives.
This fall I have been keenly aware of how grateful I am to be with you on Sunday mornings.
This time together has really served as a well of strength and encouragement for a challenging
season. Regardless of whether we all agree on this or that regarding our country, there is
something healing about the invisible chords that bind us to one another and to the Big Love.
Those invisible chords of connection are nurtured in this place, and are in here (inside my/our
hearts), when we are “out there”.
We creatures need connection whether we walk on four legs, fly on two wings, or stand on two
feet – we need community. We who walk on two feet need places where we can also gather to
seek the guidance of a Still-speaking God. I heard a news commentator use the expression that
we live in a “democratic cacophony”. With the reality of technology, that is as true as ever.
Now I have always loved the word “cacophony” – thinking it sounds alive and rich! But
according to Webster it actually means a “harsh discordance of sound…a meaningless mixture
like traffic at mid-day.”
So yes indeed, we do live in a “democratic cacophony”! It does often sound like a “meaningless
mixture of traffic at mid-day”. It seems all the more important to have a place to find
community and quiet the cacophony of voices, that we might seek the voice of Love together,
and in turn, be able to sort through it better when we are “out there” in the midst of it.
The prophet Isaiah speaks of “the mountain of the Lord’s house being established as the
highest of the mountains” and that people will “stream to it” ---(using my language) ----in order
to learn the ways of Love. This space, this community --- it is “our mountain”.
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We wish all people and all nations did stream to the mountain (to some mountain!!) to learn
the ways of Love; that we really would learn how to re-form our tools of war into tools for
peace. The world would be a different place…
I read that a few years ago, Rolling Stone interviewed Jane Fonda. The interviewer asked her
about her recent conversion to Christianity. He seemed confused, even shocked, as if to say,
“Why would any educated, reasonable, modern person choose to become a Christian?”
In her response, Fonda spoke of her being drawn to the faith because, as she said, “I could feel
reverence humming in me.”
I have never heard “it” described quite this way before.
She could feel reverence humming inside of her and so she went “to the mountain of the Lord”
to discover what it would mean to live the path of reverence.
Advent is meant to be a time for us to awaken to the reverence that is humming inside of us in
the midst of the cacophony of so many other voices. Biblical scholar, Walter Brueggemann
writes that “Advent invites us to awaken from our numbed endurance and our domesticated
expectations to consider our life afresh in light of God’s gifts.”
In this Advent season --How might you awaken or re-awaken to the humming inside you? If you are experiencing this
as a dark time, how might you let the light of God shine through your own actions?
This past week I was inspired, moved, and challenged by the following three stories:
1. 500 clergy from across our country joined the hundreds of water protectors at Standing
Rock in North Dakota. The “reverence” they feel humming inside of them, the teachings
they have pondered at “the mountain of the Lord”, moved them to travel often many
miles from home, to stand with over 100 American Indian tribes and proclaim that clean
water is not a political issue, it is a right, a global human right. It was in reading about
that action I learned about the “Doctrine of Discovery”, a doctrine written and
proclaimed by Pope Alexander VI in 1493 that gave the right to Christian explorers to
claim any land that they “discovered”. These clergy brought a copy of this Doctrine with
them to Standing Rock and asked for forgiveness on behalf of our European ancestors,
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from the American Indian people. As this doctrine was the beginning of racism and
enslavement of Native people. Together they burned a copy of the doctrine as a symbol
of repentance and a new beginning.
2. The commitment of Episcopal priest Kira Schlesinger who has decided to let the
humming of reverence – the light of God shine in her life by what she called, “Done
Doing Nothing”.
She is haunted by the memory of a time in Central Texas 10 years ago when wine-tasting with
her husband on a weekend getaway she was talking with a gentleman who was pouring the
wine, saying they were moving to Nashville in a few months. The man said to her that he had
heard nice things about Nashville, that “the blacks there are nice and well-behaved, not like the
niggers in Memphis.’
Kira said nothing.
She stood there as if his words were normal and okay.
She did what she was conditioned to do, which was ignore it for the sake of niceness and
keeping the peace.
She was young, he was older…
And there were other times she didn’t say anything when neighbors expressed their concern
over “those people” moving in or when the grounds committee of her church complained that
the landscaping company they hired did not speak English.
(Using Jane Fonda’s metaphor) The “humming of reverence” in the heart of Kira finally got loud
enough after the past election season, that she has decided that she is finished being nice. She
is publically declaring that she will not let offensive and hurtful remarks slide in her presence.
She will let her fellow white people know that it is not okay.
That she is not a safe landing place for their racism.
She is putting off the Gospel of Niceness that she was raised with as a Southern, female
Christian, and putting on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
She writes: “I have listened to my brothers and sisters of color – their struggles, their joys, and
their sorrows. Now, this is my work, to challenge other white people to examine their own
implicit bias against “the other” as I have been examining mine. (Kira Schlesinger,
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www.MinistryMatters) Her story reminded me of my own memory of sitting at lunch with a
parishioner 8 years ago who told me she could never vote for a black president. I sat there and
listened, saying nothing…
3. I am also inspired by the eight children in Seattle between the ages of 12 and 16 years
old who asked a judge on Tuesday to “find Washington State in contempt for failing to
adequately protect them and future generations from the harmful effects of climate
change. They are part of a nationwide effort by young people to try to force action on
global warming. The petitioners asked a state judge to step in and require the state
Department of Ecology to come up with science-based numeric emissions reductions.”
(Seattle Times, Phuong Le, 11/23/16)
What moves me so deeply about these stories --- and there are many more – is that these are
examples of people who are listening to the humming in here (inside our hearts and minds) and
living it “out there”.
In this, there is hope.
During this Advent season we come here --- to “the mountain of the Lord”, to hear the
promises of assurance and hope. May we also come here to awaken, or perhaps re-awaken the
hum of reverence and to remember that we have work to do – that we are part of God’s
dream. How might you awaken or re-awaken to the humming of reverence inside you this
Advent season? How might each of us participate in beating our swords into plowshares and
our spears into pruning hooks? For the sake of hope – for the sake of peace, we can take real,
concrete steps to heal division, alienation and brokenness.
Amen.
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