Mother Martha’s Monday Meditation - December 7, 2009

Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smother; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.   Luke 3:6

These are the words of John the Baptist and his trademark message-- a call to repentance.
His message is also to prepare.  Prepare the way of the Lord.  It’s hard to prepare these days—since our days are packed with meetings, events and then the daily routines of life---cleaning house, going to the dentist, getting the oil changed in the car and the emissions tested.  (all things that I need to do!)  If our ordinary lives seem so full, what would that kind of preparation look like?  And how would we find the time?

That’s in part why we have times of solitude in Advent in the church.  Why we have the Advent Lessons and Carols service this coming Friday.  Why we have Advent disciplines of reading meditative words.  Why the Advent songs speak of more serious topics—of wars and terrors, of hardship and sword, of new ways, new highways in the wilderness.  It is a time to look at our reality and then to dream.

It is a time to do a reality check.  What is our life and our world like right now?  What is the reality that we live each and every day.   At the same time, Advent calls us to dream.  The readings of Advent are like poetry—poetry that leads us to uncover the truths beneath the often grim reality of today.

In order to prepare for our Kingdom work—our lives in Christ—in the coming year, we need time of preparation to sort everything out.
In order to move forward in our dreams and visions, we need to assess where we are right now. 
That kind of thinking takes time and space.
The realist and the dreamer—both symbolized in this crazy figure of John the Baptist—need to come together to move forward.  We need to turn for ways that keep us from moving forward.  We need to repent.  But we also need to dream.

In our history, in times of great upheaval, chaos and promise we have always been blessed with realist and dreamers. 
During the Civil Rights movement, we had a president—Lyndon Johnson—a political realist if there ever was one—who knew how to create and pass laws that would change lives.  He heard the dream and put his realism to work.  He prepared the way for much by his gifts of political saavy.  It might not have been pretty—but it got the job done.
But we also needed the poet, the visionary, the dreamer in Martin Luther King---who gave us the words that inspired a nation to accept the dream of a color-blind society.  Without the dream, the legislation would never have passed.  Without the realist, the dream would be just a dream.  (example from Feasting on the Word, a commentary on the Revised Common Lectionary)

In your own life, have you prepared the way for Christ to come into you life for another year by examining the facts and figures of your life with the dream and vision?

Tomorrow would be the day 150 years ago that the charter was signed to create Memorial Episcopal Church by a group of committed Christians at Memorial Episcopal Church.  I wonder what kind of preparation of facts and figures, dreams and visions, those good people pondered.
As we face another 150 years, Memorial Church continues to do its Advent preparation.
Today the Finance Committee will gather after church to continue preparing this place for the next 150 years.
As always, facts and figures are examined.  These facts and figures are held up next to our dreams and visions as a community.  That is always a sobering exercise.
How do we repent and move forward at the same time?
How do we continue to be a church with a vibrant life of musicals, dramas, worship, outreach, fellowship, education and pastoral care with limited resources?
This time of year always does feel a little like John the Baptist—where we realize that we really can’t afford to do what we do---is this the year that we will make hard cuts in our life as a community?  It feels like giving up the dream.  The budget process is like a wilderness experience.  Is there a way in the wilderness?

John the Baptist would say Yes.
But it takes both the realist and the dreamer in each of us to say Yes.
Yes in our individual callings in this life and Yes as a community.

Part of my Advent preparation includes some retreat time.  On Thursday, I attended the Advent Clergy Quiet Day at Claggett.  We looked at the Poetry of Advent.  The poetry of dreams in the midst of reality.

I will close with a poem that is about the grim reality of Advent and the promise of the dream.  In my small clergy group, we all spoke about this poem in our justice work—but also in our annual parish budget work.  See what you think.

Candles In Babylon by Denise Levertov

Through the midnight streets of Babylon
Between the steel towers of their arsenals,
Between the torture castles with no windows,
We race by barefoot, holding tight
Our candles, trying to shield
The shivering flames, crying
“Sleepers Awake!”

                  Hoping

That rhyme’s promise was true,
That we may return
From this place of terror
Home to a calm dawn and
The work we had just begun.

I hope to see you at the Advent Lessons and Carols service on Friday, December 11.  Light supper in the parish hall at 6:30.  Service at 7:30 pm.