Joy Shall Come Even to the Wilderness: Reflections on the Propers for the 3rd Sunday of Advent

RCL Advent 3C

15 December 2024

 

Church of the Epiphany

Surrey BC

 

         As part of my personal spiritual reading, I have been working my way through a collection of what are called ‘apocryphal gospels’.  These are works written by ancient writers, some of whom were Christians, some of whom we now call heretics and some of whom we know were marginally if at all Christians in the common understanding.  One of these writers, a Christian teacher named Marcion, prepared a unique version of the Gospel according to Luke, the only Gospel Marcion thought was worth keeping.

 

         Earlier this week I found myself hooked by one verse in Marcion’s version of Luke:  “A good man brings out good from the good stored in his heart, and an evil man brings out evil from the evil stored up in his heart.  For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” [1]  I decided to compare Marion’s text with those we use today.  I discovered that this verse was pretty much the same in whatever contemporary translation I checked.  And I heard in my heart, ‘May only God’s truth be spoken.  May only God’s truth be heard.’

 

         To be sure, Marcion’s views on God and the Scriptures are ones that I do not share, nor have they been endorsed by the overwhelming numbers of Christian teachers throughout the centuries.  But even a person considered an outsider can speak God’s truth.

 

         This Sunday is traditionally known as ‘Gaudete Sunday’ – ‘Rejoice Sunday’.  In the midst of the busyness of preparing for the coming Christmas celebrations and after weeks of readings that speak of the coming judgement of God, it is good to hear these words of Paul:

 

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.  Let your gentleness be known to everyone.  The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. [2]

 

         As I read these familiar words of Paul in the light of my diving into one verse of Luke’s gospel, I found myself thinking, ‘What if joy is like good?  If our hearts, our inner selves, overflow with joy, then will we be a joyful people?’  Over these past months with electioneering on both sides of the border and in many other places in the world, there seemed to be a distinct lack of joy.  The joy that Kamala Harris tried to use to counter the fear conjured by Donald Trump did not seem to sway the eventual electorate.  We all are waiting to see if the joy awakened by the defeat of the Assad regime in Syria will be met with hope-filled possibilities for change and renewal in that country.

 

         What prevents our hearts from overflowing with joy?  I think that joy is only possible when our inner selves are fuelled by gratitude.  Without gratitude we can only look at the world through the lens of scarcity.  Scarcity dries the heart and makes us see only wildernesses that threaten us.  Scarcity awakens fear and fear leads us into paths that cause us to turn inwards and to hoard whatever resources we may have, whether physical, spiritual or emotional.

 

         Awakening gratitude requires us to re-visit our past and to discover how God has been at work in our lives and, even when we have been close to despair, has reached out to us to show us a path towards hope.  Awakening gratitude requires us to look at the present and to recognize the signs of God working in us, through us, around us and, dare I say, sometimes despite us.

 

         One of my favourite Christmas traditions is to watch one of the film versions of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  Many of us are familiar with the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miser who has much but always thinks himself poor, a lonely man who doesn’t dare love because he is afraid that he’ll lose that love.  Over the course of an evening, Christmas Eve to be exact, Scrooge is taken on a journey of transformation through the past and the present and into the future.  As he revisits his past and his present, Scrooge begins to discover gratitude and that gratitude awakens joy.  It always grieves me that people forget the story when they portray Scrooge as perpetually miserly and lonely and unlovable.  They forget the joy and joy is the heart of the story.

 

         There is a Welsh hymn written in the 1890’s by Daniel James called ‘Calon Lân’ – ‘A Pure Heart’. [3] I learned it when preparing for the funeral of one of my parishioners at Saint Faith’s ten years ago.

 

Nid wy’n gofyn bywyd moethus Aur y byd na’i berlau mân: Gofyn wyf am galon hapus, Calon onest, calon lân.   Calon lân yn llawn daioni Tecach yw na’r lili dlos; Dim ond calon lân all ganu, Canu’r dydd a chanu’r nos.

I don’t ask for a luxurious life, The world’s gold or its fine pearls; I ask for a happy heart, An honest heart, a pure heart.   A pure heart full of goodness Is fairer than the pretty lily: None but a pure heart can sing, Sing in the day and sing in the night

 

         I know that there are many for whom joy is still somewhere in the distance.  But it is there.  The prophet Isaiah proclaimed these words to the people of Israel even as they faced an uncertain future:  “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and shouting.” [4]  To discover that joy one must only make a journey of re-discovery to find the springs of memory which will give the waters of gratitude.  Those springs are not always easy to find, but they are still there, and they have not dried up.

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[1] Luke 6.45 in ‘Marcion’s Gospel’ in The Apocryphal Gospels, trans. Simon Gathercole.

 

[2] Philippians 4.4-7 (NRSVue).

 

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calon_Lân accessed on 14 December 2024.

 

[4] Isaiah 35.1 (NRSVue).

 

Repairing the World: Reflections on the 2nd Sunday of Advent

 

 

RCL Advent 2C

8 December 2024

 

Church of the Epiphany

Surrey BC

 

         For several years I served as the Faculty Library Liaison at Vancouver School of Theology.  It was during a time when our Library was going through several transitions, so it was thought that having a regular connection with the Faculty of the School would be a good thing for the Library Staff.

 

         Almost every day I would stop by the Library to check in with the Staff.  One of their shared activities was to complete the crossword puzzle in an American magazine.  This was no ordinary crossword.  Solving one clue only provided you with a few letters to solve a literary quotation.  So the four of us would work together or individually on the puzzle for days.  I’m happy to say that most of the time we solved the puzzle before the next one appeared.

 

         In addition to the crossword, someone would bring in a jigsaw puzzle.  Spread out on a table were all the pieces with the box top perched nearby to guide us.  We’d find all the pieces that made up the outer edges.  We’d try to figure out what pieces went where.  Sometimes someone would be able to connect three or four pieces together to form a little ‘island’ just waiting to be connected to another part of the puzzle.

 

         Working on the crossword and the jigsaw puzzle was special in a number of ways.  First, it was something we all did together.  Second, no one was a ‘star’.  With each crossword or puzzle one of us would turn out to be the person who could decipher the clues or discern how the pieces fit together better than the rest.  Third, it was an activity that gave us peace as we were navigating some difficult times in the Library and the School.

 

         All of today’s readings were written to communities that were in the midst of one turmoil or another.  Baruch was writing to a community being persecuted for following the Law of Moses.  Paul was writing to a community under scrutiny by both civil and religious authorities.  Luke was writing to a community who needed to know that the message of John the Baptist was a message of renewal and hopeful expectation.  All the scriptures today were written for us, Christians living in a society where our role is changing, where our congregations have different understandings of the good news of God in Christ, where society questions whether religious faith is a blessing or not.

 

         In challenging times people can choose differing ways of coping.  Some people act as if nothing has changed and simply go on doing what they’ve been doing for years.  Other people turn inward and hope that there will be some unexpected change in the climate around them.  Some communities acknowledge the challenges they face and discern how best to navigate them.  They remember who they are and what they are called to do and how they can do this in changing circumstances.

 

         In the Jewish tradition there is a concept called tikkun olam.  Tikkun olam  means ‘repairing the world’.  A person participates in tikkun olam by prayer, by study, by worship and by their commitment to justice, steadfast love and humility.  I believe that Christians who share a faith heritage with Jews are also called to tikkun olam.

 

         What I love about this belief that we are called to be co-workers with God in repairing the world is what I experienced with the Library Staff so many years ago.  We have a world before us that we know needs repairing.  We see clues that might lead us to fixing one thing or another; we see pieces that might fit together to link at least a few people or communities if not all.  But it is a task that we need to do together.  No single person, no single community, can do this work alone.  We need allies and co-workers who share our commitment to restore the world to the beauty God intended.

 

         It is a task that requires the cooperation and coordination of all of the gifts of time, of talent and of treasure that God has bestowed upon human beings.  There are some clues better seen by one person or community than by another.  There are some links that one person or community can better create than another.

 

         It is a task that brings peace even if only to one small portion of the world in which we live, even if only for a brief span of time.  Maimonides, one of the great teachers of Judaism, wrote that if one person was able to repair the world for one hour, it was as if they had repaired the whole world entirely and caused God’s glory to rest upon us. [1]  God is not calling us to complete the work of repair and of restoration; God is calling us to participate in it as best as we can with the resources we have.

 

         On this second Sunday of Advent I invite to join me in pondering how we, both as individuals and as a community, can share in God’s work of restoring the world to the beauty God intends.  While we cannot escape thinking about the whole world, we need to focus on how we participate locally – here in Guildford, here in Surrey, here in the Lower Mainland.

 

         One thing that I learned so many years ago with the Library Staff is how the work of one person can create a cascade effect that results in the completion of a crossword or a puzzle. Because one person has deciphered one crossword clue, it becomes the means to complete a whole section.  Because one person has managed to put together a few ‘islands’ of jigsaw pieces, suddenly the whole puzzle can be completed in a few minutes.  And peace, even if only for a moment, comes down upon us.  From that moment of peace comes a renewed hope in the future, in the completion of God’s work of repairing ‘this fragile earth, our island home’, this precious expression of God’s love for us and for all creation.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/Tikkun_olam accessed on 7 December 2024.