A Story for Advent

It's 27th November 2008. Last week, we marked the end of the Catholic liturgical year with the feast of Christ the King. This weekend marks the 1st Sunday in Advent and the start of a new year in the Church's calendar.

Already, the shopping complexes are busy decorating their malls. People are already talking about making "Christmas plans" and "Christmas shopping". The first sounds of Christmas tunes begin to play in the air.

All the more then, that the story reproduced below may well be worth reading and reflecting upon, during one of the most hectic periods in our lives:

Mary and Martha
by Rev. Henry Ticknor

Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley
(note: edited for space).

For most of the people I know, rather than being a time of quiet expectation, the four weeks of advent are filled to the brim with the rush of seasonal activities. There is shopping to be done, the cooking of favorite and traditional foods, decorating the house, the yard, and making the usual round of pre-Christmas parties and social gatherings. This headlong rush lasts through New Years and then there is a collective crash as we hunker down for the dark days of winter.

This season of advent, leading up to Christmas is a time of paradoxical feelings and contrasting emotions. We are excited about the holidays, but all that we are expected to do wears us down. We can feel very sentimental about family traditions; and at the same time we may resent the time and effort required to meet other people’s expectations. Seeing family and friends can be exhilarating; and yet we can also feel pangs of loneliness and despair. The media bombards us with the message that this is a time of love, hope and joy. But the love and joy that the season represents can also be mingled with worry about money, jobs, children and our relationships. Hope can be dashed by the current events. In the end, all the hustle and bustle of this season can leave us emotionally and physically drained.

you won’t find it in any collection of contemporary seasonal writing. In fact, I doubt very much that it appears in any discussion of the Advent season at all and I may be the only person who really thinks this story has anything at all to do with Advent. It comes from the Gospel of Luke and the beginning words may have a familiar ring:

“ Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.

And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard his word.

But Martha was combuered about much serving, and came to him and said, “Lord, dost thou not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me.

And Jesus answered and said unto her, ‘Martha, Martha, thou art careful and worried about many things: But one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

At this time of year, this season of Advent, I am always reminded of this story of two sisters, of Mary and Martha and I am sure that many of us can relate our own life experience to this story.

Martha is the perfect host. I can imagine her now in her kitchen stirring a pot with a big wooden spoon, her hands and face white from the flour used to bake bread. I can see her moving quickly from pot to pot—the potatoes are boiling over, the meat dish is overdone in the oven, the table still needs to be set and to make matters worse, Mary has invited guests for dinner. So when Martha walks out into the front room looking for some help and support from her sister what is Mary doing? Well, to Martha’s mind she isn’t doing much. Mary is sitting on the floor engaged in conversation with the guests.

I like to think that they are catching up on important events in their lives, sharing stories, possibly even some local gossip. In short, they are talking about the essential matters in life. Issues dealing with faith, hope and love.

Now, I can picture the situation coming to a head as Martha goes barging into the front room wondering why in the world her sister isn’t helping her in the kitchen. But what is interesting here, is that Martha does not direct her remarks to Martha but to Jesus. interesting in this story is that Martha does not direct her anger at Mary, but rather she scolds Jesus. “Lord, dost thou not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me.” By her words She implies that all this extra work she must do is somehow his fault and in a way she tells him off by saying, “Don’t you care that I am stuck in the kitchen doing everything by myself? Tell Mary to help.”

Now Jesus has apparently attended self-esteem workshops and is well versed in issues around manipulation and triangulation and he quickly realizes that Martha is trying to get him to take sides. And how does he reply?

Martha, Martha, you are too busy with all your cooking and all your preparations—you have too many things on your plate(!)—but Mary has chosen to sit and talk with me. Long after the meal is over, she will carry the memories of this time we spent together. And this is the end of the story. We don’t know whether Martha suddenly realized that Jesus was right, took off her apron and entered into the conversation; or whether she took on a major martyr attitude and slunk back into the kitchen being resentful and feeling sorry for herself.

What an instructive story this is for the weeks leading up to Christmas. How many of us are like Martha—running around trying to decorate the house, wrapping presents in just the perfect gift wrap, writing cards with a personal note in each, and cooking everyone’s favorite foods?

How quickly do we become angry or jealous of those who seem to have found the time to relax, to visit, to talk with one another about their shared hopes, shared dreams and shared visions for what this troubled world might be. How many of us become resentful and feel like we are “stuck” doing all the things no one else will do?

My Christmas wish for this year is that we would all try to behave more like Mary and a little less like Martha. How I wish we could spend more time listening to each other, really listening and hearing the stories of joy, of pain and of discouragement. All too soon even the most elegant meal is leftovers; the beautiful wrapping paper is in the re-cycling. But the time we spend with friends and loved ones—our families and our friends—this time is precious. This is the good portion that can not be taken away.

And in a very real sense this congregation is in a season of waiting, of expectancy, of preparation. We are waiting for the new building that may yet take several months to complete. We are waiting for our future story to begin and to unfold. And just as the advent season is a time of personal reflection over the next several weeks I invite each person here to reflect upon what this church and community means to you.

“If there were no advent,” writes John Taylor, “we would need to invent it". We human creatures, in spite of all that has happened to us and been done by us, are stillhopeful. Something new, something vital, something promising is always coming, and we are always expecting. Thus in Advent candles are lighted to mark the time of preperation, and with each new light our anticipation grows—as it should. We are, after all, a hopeful people.

For the full story, please go here.

I Am God's Dwelling Place

These words came across in a strangely very candid, almost "transparent" kind of way today:

"I am God's dwelling place"

....so goes the opening lines of today's meditation from the Irish Jesuits prayer website - Sacred Space.

Which let a whole range of emotions and memories of past experiences wash over me. When I let them sink a little further, I can just about see how blessed I am, indeed how blessed we all are, how wonderfully made, in God's own image.

But then reality hits in. I find as with many others, that health problems arise as we grow older; financial dilemmas threatening to overwhelm us especially in the light of the current global recession; difficult inter-personal relationships as we discover new people coming into our lives; swimming against the tide with floundering faith in the face of mass deception by the media, elected government and perhaps most disturbingly, within and among the Church itself.

Why is there so much misery today? Within me? Among one another? Among races, between nations?

In the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, there's a song called "Poor Jerusalem" that goes in part like this:

If you knew all that
I knew, my poor Jerusalem,
You'd see the truth, but you close your eyes...
But you close your eyes.

Today's Sacred Space reflection tells us that "Jesus was sorrowful that they did not recognise the visit of God when he came" and more poignantly, ".... He weeps not for the destruction of bricks and mortar, but for the suffering of the people in the city and the destruction of peace".

In the book "Mary, Shadow of Grace" by Megan McKenna, the author tells a delightful story of how we can all be present to one another. It goes something like this:

Once upon a time there was an abbot of a monastery who was very good friends with the rabbi of a local synagogue. It was Europe and times were hard…

The abbot found his community dwindling and the faith life of his monks shallow and lifeless. Life in the monastery was dying. He went to his friend and wept. His friend, the rabbi, comforted him and told him: “There is something you need to know, my brother. We have long known in the Jewish community that the Messiah is one of you.”

“What,” exclaimed the abbot, “the Messiah is one of us? How can that be?”

But the rabbi insisted that it was so, and the abbot went back to his monastery wondering and praying, comforted and excited.

Once back in the monastery, walking down the halls and in the courtyard, he would pass by a monk and wonder if he was the one. Sitting in chapel, praying, he would hear a voice and look intently at a face and wonder if he was the one, and he began to treat all of his brothers with respect, with kindness and awe, with reverence. Soon it became quite noticeable.

One of the other brothers came to him and asked him what had happened to him. After some coaxing, he told him what the rabbi had said. Soon the other monk was looking at his brothers differently and wondering. The word spread through the monastery quickly: The Messiah is one of us. Soon the whole monastery was full of life, worship, kindness and grace. The prayer life was rich and passionate, devoted, and psalms and liturgy and services were alive and vibrant. Soon the surrounding villagers were coming to the services and listening and watching intently, and there were many who wished to join the community.

After their novitiate, when they took their vows, they were told the mystery, the truth that their life was based upon, the source of their strength and life together: The Messiah is one of us. The monastery grew and expanded into house after house, and all of the monks grew in wisdom, age, and grace before the others and the eyes of God. And they say still, if you stumble across this place, where there is life and hope and kindness and graciousness, that the secret is the same: The Messiah is one of us.

Glory to you, Source of all being
Eternal Word and Holy Spirit,
Who dwells in our midst
Both now and forever. Amen.

In other words, we are all God's dwelling places. If we can remember that every now and then in the daily grind of our lives and continue to work for peace and justice, we may yet succeed in building new "Jerusalems" right where we are.

The Brick Prophet!

From Michel Quoist and Jeremiah a reminder of the task each one of us has been entrusted with:

"The brick layer laid a brick on the bed of cement.
Then, with a precise stroke of his trowel, spread another layer
And without a by-your-leave, laid on another brick.
The foundations grew visibly,
The building rose, strong and tall, to shelter men.

I thought, Lord, of that poor brick buried in the darkness
at the base of the big building.
No one sees it, but it accomplishes its task,
and the other bricks need it.
Lord, what difference whether I am on the rooftop
or in the foundations of your building,
as long as I stand at the right place?"
(The Brick - Michel Quoist)


Juxtaposed here with The Call of Jeremiah in the Old Testament:

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

"Ah, Sovereign LORD," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a child."

But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD.

Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."

(Jeremiah 1:4-10, NIV)

I like the last line in Michel Quoist's prayer: "as long as I stand in the right place". May we then, all of us, blessed and sent, stand tall and strong in our proper places, in all the circumstances of our lives, living our call, whatever it may be.