Second Advent
Luke 3:1-6
She came to me worried about her children. Oh of course she was sad herself to be leaving this community she liked and had become attached to. She assured me one of the hardest changes would be leaving this church and the friends she had made here. But it is a reality that job promotions often require moves and this was just too promising for her husband to turn down. No it was a reality that they had to move--but it was the children she worried about--even though they were preschoolers when they moved here this was the only world they knew. Already there had been tears, complaints, doors slammed, pouty silences. What lasting, deep psychological damage did I think this move would have on them? I'm not a psychologist and I don't pretend to be but I've walked with a lot of people through the normal stresses of life and I can occasionally pick up on what's going on. First, mom had to lament as did the kids. The move would be hard and yes, they all would miss some of the things they had come to appreciate here. Admit it and talk about it and maybe shed a few tears.
Now, what next? Have you been house hunting yet? Have you taken the kids to see the new neighborhood? Have you gotten the conversation started about what the new place might be like? Have you allowed your imaginations to get into gear? It seems to me that it's hard to let go of one thing until you can begin to see the possibility of another and that is a process of the imagination.
He stopped in to drop off some food for PADS and came by the office to mention that his company would be laying off people in January and his future with the company was uncertain. He just wanted me to know that because he hadn't filled out a pledge card and he didn't want me to think anything was bothering him about the church. I appreciated knowing that and assured him that I understood. "That must be tough facing the holiday and the New Year with such uncertainty. How exactly are you doing with that?" I asked. "Well it was bad but the job hadn't been fun for a long time. There had been some changes that made going in to work every day stressful and he had just lost enthusiasm for the work. "Yea sometimes that's the push we need to try a change." So what would you like to do, what would be more challenging and fun for you?" Let your imagination take over.
We all know we have gigabytes of data at our fingertips these days but as one book I was perusing recently said flat out, "We don't need more data. We have more facts than we can possibly consume. What we are dying of is lack of courage, lack of dreams, a failure of nerve and no computer can give us that." Isn't that really Imagination?
Imagination means having the sort of mind that is hospitable to facts that are usually ignored. Imagination is a willingness to take risks that the world may not be as it seems. In imagination thought takes wings and rises above the mere storing of facts and becomes adventure.
Peter Gomes, minister of Memorial Church at Harvard, recently spoke of the Bible as "a book of imagination." Don't think of Scripture primarily as rules, as lists of regulations. Think of the Bible as a book meant to speak, to stoke, to fuel the imagination. We modern folk tend toward mostly facts and figures. We're more into statistics than symbols. We pride ourselves on being "realistic". Of course when we begin with the assumption that real only refers to that which can be touched and teased, reality shrinks our expectations for what can and cannot be done and our thinking gets scaled down considerably.
It seems to me that the prophets who are often seen in the Bible as grumpy, nay-sayers are truly part of this imaginative tradition. Walter Bruegemann the great Old Testament scholar says the prophets of Israel were not primarily carping social critics. They were imaginative poets. He says "Reality is not ever to be taken "as is", but is always under negotiation. The prophets see things not only as they are but as they might become. They encourage people to take stock of life as it is and imagine a better, more hopeful alternative and then become the workers who make that happen.
Our friend John the Baptist is the last biblical prophet in this succession. According to the angel Gabriel he is the one who comes in the spirit and power of Elijah. In the Spirit of Malachi he believes that the very corruption of the priests of the temple can be refined and purified like silver and gold. Like the prophet Isaiah our John the Baptist imagines the possibility of making the playing field level for all people, filling valleys and knocking down mountains, straightening the crooked and smoothing the rough. His message is not calling for a simple confession, a degree or two of course correction, No our John the Baptist is calling for repentance; an act of imagination. An act of imagination that would inspire a hundred and eighty degree change of direction. Not a simple change of mind but a movement into transformation that involves the whole person. That kind of repentance closes off the past with its forgiveness of sins and invites us to enter into a new future that allows us to let go of the past.
So this Advent season, this preparation time we talk so much about is an opportunity to take stock, to look at our lives with the inner eyes of imagination: Prepare a way for the lord. Look at your priorities, your values, your behavior. Check out your emotional, your spiritual and your ethical life. Are you headed in the right direction? Are you headed in the direction of the good? Are you headed in the direction of God? If not, repent, imagine a new way of living, change direction.
Is your health unhealthy--your blood pressure too high, your cholesterol too rich, your weight too much? Well then repent. Turn around, change direction. How is your family life? Is it balanced, honest, open connected? Or is it stressed, precarious, lonely brittle broken? Repent. Turn around change direction. What about your work--paid or volunteer--is it rewarding, creative, compassionate--or is it tedious, over whelming, demanding--disconnected from your vision and your dreams, an unsatisfying use of your gifts and energy? Repent. Turn around. Change direction. And what about your faith? Is it vital, growing healing and serving? Or is it small, tired tepid, dull? Repent. Turn Around. Change direction. Engage the imagination. Life is not just what is but what might be.
John's words may seem harsh but they are challenging us to envision and embrace a new future. He tells us to prepare by facing the truth of who we are and claiming the hope of who we may become.
The Thursday morning Bible study did an interesting exercise this week. For six weeks we've been exploring the spiritual nature of food; Food as sacrament, food that nourishes our bodies, hunger, food and the environment food and hospitality. Throughout the course the text has challenged us to take action on what we have studied. So in our last session we were to write down continuing action steps and hang them on a doorway. A little hooky perhaps but clearly intended to visually indicate that repentance is not about more rules and regulations not about grim recriminations and past guilt. No repentance is about imagination--a new way of seeing and doing. Repentance is the open door that is an invitation from God to the wholeness of a new life.
I was inspired by the preacher Susan Andrews vision of this text, she writes, "Somehow when I think of Advent, of repentance, of preparation, I don't have visions of arid deserts and wild prophets. I think instead of the wide open fields of North Dakota and Minnesota--with acres of sunflowers turning their faces toward the sun. The beauty of these flowers is in their responsive turn. Their health and wholeness comes from their openness to the sun. Their life is defined by what the light can give them. So it is for us in the fields of our daily living. My friends, let us turn around and let us turn our faces to the light of the World-- and let us shine.
Amen