Advent devotionals CCINOH 2020

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Micah 3:1-2, 5; 4:1-2; 5:2; 6:8

Micah is an under-appreciated prophet of Advent.

Isaiah and Amos would have known of Micah's message as contemporaries, and Jeremiah speaks approvingly of him from the generation just after him. One thing we get from Micah's preaching is that there were obviously other prophets speaking in his era, and that they were speaking a word more congenial to what the kings and princes wanted to hear, whose "prophetic" word was comforting to those in power, even in support of those who oppressed the people.

And I said:

Listen, you heads of Jacob

    and rulers of the house of Israel!

Should you not know justice?—

    you who hate the good and love the evil…

A prophet who loves evil is hard to imagine . . . or maybe not. But Micah warned God's people against such speaking. And had harsh words for those who said such preaching was what the Lord Most High had to say to those in lowly estate.

Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets

    who lead my people astray,

who cry "Peace"

    when they have something to eat,

but declare war against those

    who put nothing into their mouths.

Yet Micah did offer hope, even if that hope was not in those who had authority and power during that particular period.

In days to come

    the mountain of the Lord's house

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

    and shall be raised up above the hills.

Peoples shall stream to it,

    and many nations shall come and say:

"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

    to the house of the God of Jacob;

that he may teach us his ways

    and that we may walk in his paths."

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,

    and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Micah's word on behalf of God's Word was that yes, the land of Judah could be a place where divine favor was found, where heavenly purposes would be fulfilled. But it might not be out of the center, the capital, the palaces of Jerusalem from which such leadership would come:

But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,

    who are one of the little clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

    one who is to rule in Israel,

whose origin is from of old,

    from ancient days.

And to live prophetically? Micah may have summed up in one verse better than any other prophet God's intention for us: 

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

    and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

    and to walk humbly with your God?

In that three-fold command is a map for Advent, now and always, walking towards hope which endures. "To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God."

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Revelation 21:3-4

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

"See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them; 

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away."

Every year, no matter your own personal situation, each of us has a store of memories, many delightful and always a few awkward and painful ones, about what Christmas has been before in our lives.  We also all know and anticipate how this year's observance will be different. 

"Empty chairs around the table" has usually been just a metaphor, since we rarely leave a chair empty, but in many homes a standard table will simply not have enough people physically present to fill them. So for many of us, for the first time perhaps, we literally will have empty chairs at the table.

The illnesses that are active right now — and there are always people dealing with sickness in this season who find the juxtaposition challenging, even before the virus came into our lives, cancer patients and people recovering from surgery needing special seating and the overall impact of age and infirmity — bring a weight of circumstance into the situation which can threaten to drag the whole celebration right down to the ground. I pray that we don't let that happen. Again, having a person or two ailing at the holidays isn't actually unusual, it's just that we all do, this year. We all have to deal with a different sort of celebration, and that general adjustment is a way of dealing with it, knowing that we are none of us alone in having a strange Advent.

Planning and preparation for Christmas has always been part of the Advent season, however we mark this penitential period. But this year, we all will be feeling the prayerful and preparations part of Advent in a more Lenten fashion than we normally do. We are all giving something up for Advent in 2020, which is in fact not all bad. Just as sacrifice and discipline is a standard part of Lent, it's supposed to be in part why we have an Advent season, so Christmas like Easter is a joyful feast we prepare our hearts and minds to observe in all the depth and breadth and expansiveness that those joyful culminations deserve.

May our Advent, with what we will lose and leave and set aside, be part of tuning our affections and focusing our love towards the gifts of God meant for our lasting blessing. Not towards the gifts or meals or events, but into relationships and memories that endure, and how our freshly understood valuations in this life turn us towards eternal values that can change what we do next, how we advocate and prioritize and work for the values of Jesus in the community and world around us.

Prayer: God of grace and God of glory, in our humble moments and sorrowful passages, help us to be more understanding of those in pain around us, to appreciate the losses others have known, and to see this world's tears and mourning with compassion and appreciation. May we learn from our losses, and be empowered in our Christmas understandings to build up and support those who live in loss every day, to care for the abandoned and lost, and to share Good News out of heaven that changes the news people hear in their neighborhood to hope and help. Amen.

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Psalm 90: 1, 4, 10

Lord, you have been our dwelling place
    in all generations.

For a thousand years in your sight
    are like yesterday when it is past,
    or like a watch in the night.

The days of our life are seventy years,

    or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;

even then their span is only toil and trouble;

    they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Advent's usual translation from the Latin of "To come" can also be interpreted as "to wait." We all know what it means to be waiting for a departure. In an airport terminal or just marking time in a living room before the time comes to take off, to drive away, there's a certain sort of waiting involved, sometimes wishing time would go more slowly, other circumstances wishing it would speed up.

Most of us have also known those long and complicated farewells in the doorway, on the porch, and even onto the driveway that go on and on, right down to the waving in the rear-view mirror. "Well, good bye! Okay, so it's time we're going, good bye . . . oh, and . . ." Good byes can take a while.

There are also those times of waiting for a good bye which go far beyond words. So many of us have known them, and none of us are "good at" such times of waiting. In a hospital or nursing home or even a curtained bay of an emergency department: waiting for a life to end. The doctor and chaplain and staff have all said their piece, but the figure on the bed is hanging on, and the digital readouts tell their own declining story of already but not yet.

So we wait. Waiting for . . . no. Not that, really. Or do we? We wait for an end to the waiting, which necessarily means an end we do not welcome, but the waiting itself starts to build into an intolerable pressure for expecting something to come, a passage, a moment, and yes, an ending that tells us what to do next.

That sort of waiting is beyond words, because nothing more can be said, yet there's always conversations to be had, even as we are waiting. On a hospice floor, around a hospital bed in the living room of a home. Waiting, for something that is "to come," an Advent of an end that, in our prayers and hopes, an end that in faith and trust we believe is something more than an ending, so we wish it away even as we wait for it "to come," in that other, darker, but also deeper meaning of Advent.

Advent means there is pain and change and transformation coming. We want that passage, we seek the closeness to God and holy living that we trust is waiting on the other side of what we're waiting for, but there's a hesitation, even an anxiety wrapped up in it, too.

Waiting for something we know will come, must come, and is the inevitable, necessary next phase, a good bye and a departure, and yes, even a death — that's a kind of Advent, a waiting for what is to come, that is intertwined with what our Advent for Christmas is meant to be. The birth of Jesus into this world, the coming of the Christ into our lives, means a dying to self, a change in priorities, a leaving behind of certain elements of what's been normal until now. 

Coming to Jesus can be wrenching and transformational and yes, even a death in this life, to rise with Christ into newness of life, a passage into life eternal. Not just at the end of our earthly lives, but for a reality of God's Realm in our here and now — which can mean a sort of dying to much that's here and now, too.

And so we wait. In hope, in faith, but with our hearts in our throats, as we wait.

Prayer: Lord of us all, you give each of us certain opportunities, a specific span of days, and the chance to be part of your work here on earth as we all prepare for what you have in your mind for eternity. May we reflect your eternal values in our work and our waiting, as we wait with others in their trials, and work for the good of one another in all that we do, bringing joy to all who hear your Name. Amen.

Notes from my Knapsack 11-26-20

Notes from my Knapsack 11-26-20

Jeff Gill

Who's pardoning whom?
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While the dateline for these columns tends to be a Thursday, whether you read these in print or online, the odds are that you won't be reading this on Thanksgiving Day. If you are, Happy Thanksgiving!

It's a mess. Let's just be honest and candid and accepting. With the growing spread of new COVID cases, and the mix of good news about vaccines and the awkward news of what kind of contacts lead to people coming down with the coronavirus, we all are having to make adjustments in Thanksgiving this year. Some bigger than others.

Every year, no matter your own personal situation, each of us has a store of memories, many delightful and always a few awkward and painful ones, about what Thanksgiving has been before in our lives, and how this year's observance will be different. Empty chairs around the table is a metaphor, since we rarely leave a chair empty, but in many homes a standard table will simply not have enough people physically present to fill them. So for many of us, for the first time perhaps, we literally will have empty chairs at the table.

Having a person or two ailing at the holidays isn't actually unusual, it's just that we all do, this year. We all have to deal with a different sort of celebration, and that general adjustment is a way of dealing with it, knowing that we are none of us alone in having a strange Thanksgiving.

Which is why I turn to the turkey. Most years, the United States of America has a deeply weird tradition at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and no, I don't mean anything to do with the election. I'm talking about the presidential turkey pardon. This year, a turkey farmer from Iowa will bring two birds to the White House, and the President of the United States will use his awesome executive branch powers to pardon one, and not the other. But, for decades at least, both end up at some petting zoo or agri-tourism farm as curiosities for the rest of their natural days.

My vegan friends have an obvious solution to this oddity. Don't eat any turkeys. Or Cornish game hens. Or chicken breasts. Et cetera. I'm not a vegan or even much of a vegetable aficionado, except for roasted Brussel sprouts this time of year, but this is where being a carnivore does make me think.

Turkey farmers are in a bit of a pickle, as suddenly people all want smaller birds, and those proud 14 and 15 and 19 pound birds in the freezer are getting shoved aside as people look to cook smaller this year. Will many be spared this year? The internet tells me wild turkeys live 3-5 years in the wild, and 10 or so years is the most they can expect as domesticated farm residents. So there's room for some deferred decisions here. Perhaps next year there will be a turkey surplus, and many commuted sentences will be executed as we rejoice at being together in larger quantities? So good news for us will be bad news for turkeys, just as our bad news this year I suspect will turn out to be good news for quite a few big birds down on the farm.

Perhaps the only good answer here is to at least be thankful for the life of the bird or bird parts or large root vegetables at the heart of our holiday table, to appreciate the sun and rain and struggles that got that food to us, and in it all, to give thanks.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's roasting a turkey breast this year, not a whole bird. Tell him about your Thanksgiving adjustments this year at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 11-28-20

Faith Works 11-28-20

Jeff Gill

A theme often overlooked

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Lent is a season even non-Christians are familiar with; Advent somewhat less so. It's already news that the pre-Lent celebrations down on the Gulf coast are already in abeyance, the Carnival season of parades and festivities which end in the much better known Mardi Gras, or "Fat Tuesday," the end of revelry before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.

In Lent, you are preparing for Easter, and in doing so, there is for many fasting, or at least the giving up of something. You fast to increase your appreciation of the feast, when Easter day comes with joy and celebration.

Less often appreciated, even in highly liturgical churches, is how Advent is meant to be a similar season. A time for prayer and penitence, a sacrificial season which prepares us for the rejoicing and festivity of Christmas. 

Some congregations have Advent wreaths and candles, four with one to each week leading to Christmas Day and a Christ candle in the middle. The traditional themes are of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love, with joy sometimes getting a pink candle contrasting a bit with the frequently purple candles for the other three.

That pause for pink, or joy, or "gaudete" in the Latin formulation, only makes sense if you are looking at the rest of the Advent season as a time for something more restrained, a season for sacrifice, a penitential period. You break out in a bit of anticipatory rejoicing, briefly, on that third Sunday of Advent, but as the rest of the culture is picking up the pace of music and decoration and parties and . . . well. Right. 2020. Let's come back to that.

Anyhow, Gaudete Sunday is either an aberration in pink, or a reminder that the rest of Advent is supposed to be a seasonal reminder to prepare our spirits, our very souls, for the coming of Good News in the flesh, of God's promises yet to be fulfilled but surely coming soon, to be ready to invite the Prince of Peace into our lives, our homes, our hearts. If we just try to celebrate the whole season, the pink candle deal is just one more darn detail to get right in our pursuit of the perfect Christmas season.

This year, I am truly feeling Adventy. That's not a word, but I declare it so. It's an Adventy kind of November and December, don't you think? We have to prepare differently this year, and it's going to be rueful and meditative and reflective if it's going to be anything at all. The parties and decorations and tree lighting ceremonies (my wife always notes that the TV movies always have to have a tree lighting ceremony where various plot developments take place for the budding romances) are all going virtual and careful and cautious. Large group gatherings are clearly unwise and in many circumstances against the best and strongest public health guidelines this year, so it's "the revenge of the introverts" and party planners are crying into their egg nog.

What this does make possible, though, is a renewed exploration and appreciation for Advent as it's actually intended. Not a steady drum beat of expectation growing in intensity and fervent celebration, an escalation that's hard to keep up with, frankly, but a quiet path of meditation and prayer and reflection on why we are glad to celebrate the birth of a baby under odd and awesome circumstances two millennia ago.

Advent, which from the Latin is "to come," is a time of thinking and preparing for what is to come. We are anticipating, adventy-ing if you will, the coming of a vaccine and a restoration of what we've lost this year, but we also expect and anticipate, in a very Advent-ish mode that what is to come will not just be what once was. Things will change, losses have come, and the future, what we anticipate, is going to be different. We have to adjust and adapt and prepare for that.

Which is what Advent has always been about. And something any of us can do with candles at home, and prayers in private, week by week through our adjusted Advent, so we can welcome this Christmas for the blessing that it can indeed still be.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's very much into Advent this year, not just the wreath and candle stuff. Tell him about your seasonal preparations at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 11-21-20

Faith Works 11-21-20

Jeff Gill

Giving thanks for most everything

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From 1970 to 1980 we went at least once a month to Grandma's house, after Grandpa's unexpected death shortly after his retirement as a school superintendent. Grandma never learned how to drive, and while the village market was still open in those days, four blocks away, there were a variety of things Mom needed to do for her (or have Dad do).

It was never something we questioned, just what had to be done. I got a line on the attendance chart in the Sunday school class there (even though I certainly never got perfect attendance, there or back home), and grew accustomed to the midnight train across the street whose lights brilliantly lit up the study with day bed where I slept at Grandma's.

And there are pieces of the experience that stick with me in all sorts of ways in memory. The Sunday dinner at 1 pm around Grandma's big table, and the meal on the way home at about 7:30 pm, always as the roadside diner was closing up so we got whatever entree was left from Sunday's earlier rush. Grandma would offer us sandwiches on the way out the door, but it was usually dark about halfway on the three and a half hour trip, so Dad didn't want to stop and eat at a picnic shelter and Mom didn't want to cook when we got back after 9 pm, so the truck stop it always was, an interesting coda to the more formal, on china, pot roast or fried chicken at Grandma's.

Now my wife and I make a trip every other weekend to help her 91 year old father. There is no question you can ask about "have you suggested to him that he…" which hasn't been discussed and firmly rejected. Let's just say he's in the home he's known for over forty years, and he's fine, just fine, but between hearing and eyesight there are things that aren't fine, and we handle the supplies and stocking with his attentive assistance. We aren't moving back to Indiana, and he's not coming to Ohio (nothing personal, Buckeyes!) so we visit, one or both of us, about as often as it takes a quart of milk to either run out or go bad.

It's a three and a half hour drive as well, but with interstate highways and satellite radio and such we don't stop, which in an era of COVID is a handy thing. I truly cannot imagine doing this with four kids in the car. When our Grandma trips began the youngest of us was out of diapers, blessedly, and then I left home in 1978 and only erratically made the trip on my own after that, more often when she grew ill and died in 1982 but during those years my mom and dad went even more often, of course, and then taking care of the house kept them driving down frequently a few more years.

Because of coronavirus, and our care of my father-in-law, we are keeping very much away from people in general, with all the Zooming and texting and emailing that's become so common in work and is working better than we ever realized in the old days of, what did they call that, in person meetings? Remember those?

And my little sister is now a grown professional who has our Mom in her house, caring for her there, near but still another hour and a half from where my wife and I shuttle to look out for her Dad. There's no good squaring of this circle for Thanksgiving, and phones or video are going to have to carry the heavy lifting as we prop up what traditions we can this year.

What I am still quite thankful for is that we can care for our parents, as they cared for theirs. They will not live another ninety years, either or both of them, but they have plenty of vim and vigor and memories to share that are irreplaceable, even if we sometimes have to work to break out of a certain set of stock stories, oft repeated. So we protect them and will distance as needed and communicate as we're able now. Would we have gone to Grandma's less often if we'd had more than a tinny long distance connection back then? I doubt it.

But today, even if we can come together, we shouldn't. So we make the connections we can, and give thanks for what we have together, even apart.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's learned almost every parallel there is to I-70 across the Midwest. Tell him about your Thanksgiving at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.