How have you been moved this year? What is saving you or breaking your heart as we move into the Advent/Christmas season?
Beverly and I peacefully moved to Greenville mid-year in the regular course of The United Methodist Church appointment system. We are grateful for Pastor Don and Shelly who preceded us here and Rev. Paul Reissmann and Ashleigh who followed us in Wayland.
The Hebrew people were liberated by God from slavery in Egypt and moved into and through the wilderness.
With the death of their husbands, “Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest” (Ruth 1:22). Ruth was the great-grandmother of King David.
Generations later Joseph and Mary were on the move from Nazareth to Bethlehem in response to a decree from Emperor Augustus because Joseph was descended from the house and family of David.
God acted with purpose in each of these moves. The sources or reasons or circumstances for the moves did not determine or prevent God’s actions but were the worldly occasions for God’s story of redemption to be told.
Each of these moves was a disruption. Bonds of friendship and family were changed. Bondage was broken.
These are common occurrences in the human story.
While written to preachers, Frederick Buechner’s challenge also is good as we consider the role of the church in ministry with our community.
“They must address themselves to the fullness of who we are and to the emptiness too, the emptiness where grace and peace belong but mostly are not, because terrible as well as wonderful things have happened to us all” (Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy & Fairy Tale, 4).
The COVID-19 pandemic has moved us apart in many ways. There is suffering we are unable to share at loved ones’ sides and there are overworked, exhausted healthcare workers who represent us in caring for them. We await the anticipated rise in cases following the Thanksgiving holiday and the colder months that will prevent outdoor gatherings. And in the midst of this, the news about vaccines is promising.
We are completing federal, state, and local elections, and the transfer of national governmental power whose integrity is questioned in courts of law and public opinion and affirmed in the intentional organization of a new administration.
The worldly momentum seems to be moving us toward chaos and strife.
These conditions characterize our entrance into Advent and the preparation for Christmas. But they don’t change the story of God’s loving, redeeming action in the world. We can learn from Buechner how to tell the Gospel of Jesus Christ and God’s redeeming grace as a tragedy, comedy, or fairy tale.
Buechner writes, “The Gospel is bad news before it is good news.” The tragedy is that we are sinners whose hearts are sick. The comedy is that we are “loved anyway, cherished, forgiven, bleeding to be sure, but also bled for.” The fairy tale is that extraordinary things happen to us “just as in fairy tales extraordinary things happen…Zaccheus climbs up a sycamore tree a crook and climbs down a saint. Paul set out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and comes back a fool for Christ” (Telling the Truth, 7). We can add Mary’s astonishment that she will bear the holy child who will be called the Son of God and her song of the mercy and strength of God who “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly…filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:50-53).
Every year I wonder how things are going to go in the Advent/Christmas seasons. How will the ministry and worship plans for the Church be received? Will we address the fullness and the emptiness “where grace and peace belong but mostly are not”? And every year I am moved by the grace that Advent preparation happens and Christmas comes to the world and we hear the Gospel that God has chosen to share our tragedy-comedy-fairly tale existence in person. Thanks be to God for our shared ministry in a broken and beautiful world. Merry Christmas.