The Power of Withdrawing

Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit . . .

                                                                Luke 4:14a

After forty days in the wilderness, Jesus emerges with power, ready to begin his ministry. I think about the preparation that his time in the wilderness gave him. Would we ever think of withdrawing as a way to access power? I have heard many people say they were fearful that if they took time away from the activities (be it work, volunteer service or recreation) they would be forgotten, deemed nonessential, or would lose the discipline to show up.

Withdrawal seems so passive to us, and most of us don’t like to be passive. I remember several years ago hearing someone say he did not want to call a retreat by that name. Instead he wanted to use the word “advance.” Advance does sound more assertive than retreat, and we might think that advancing would make us more powerful. Withdrawing or retreating, stepping out of the fray of daily activity, may not seem like the way to power.

Our cultural tendency to grit our teeth and push forward as if we are superhuman is not the way of Jesus. If we want to follow Jesus, we have to cease our breakneck pace of life. We have to move with intention and attention. We have to stop, rest, withdraw and pray. To receive the power of the Spirit requires that we lay aside our own notions of power, our tendency to take matters into our own hands.

To follow Jesus, not run ahead of Jesus, requires that we trust that the Spirit will empower us, that we can withdraw, wait and rest, setting aside our arrogant notions of how things should be and instead entrusting God with our being and doing.

It is why following Jesus is so hard for us. We have to follow, not lead!

Redeemer

(A poem based on Isaiah 62:1-3)

Trampled, torn, a dirty scarf,

looking more like a rag.

Kicked to the curb, future hope

washing into the storm drain,

forgotten, faded, forlorn--

until you came, picked me up,

cleaned me, healed my broken,

buffeted soul.

A splendid garland you named me,

held as treasure in your tender hands.

No longer cast aside, I adorn

your scarred head, high and lifted up,

shining like the sun.

For Zion’s sake I won’t keep silent,
    and for Jerusalem’s sake I won’t sit still
    until her righteousness shines out like a light,
    and her salvation blazes like a torch.
Nations will see your righteousness,
    all kings your glory.
You will be called by a new name,
    which the Lord’s own mouth will determine.
You will be a splendid garland in the Lord’s hand,
    a royal turban in the palm of God’s hand.

                                                                Isaiah 62:1-3

Knowing Our Belovedness

“You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

                                                                                                Luke 3:22b

Fifty-five years. That’s how long it took me to finally understand that I was beloved. I knew in my head that God loved me, but I didn’t know it in my heart. My self-talk was an inner critic, not the nurturing, grace-filled language of belovedness.

I didn’t come to a sudden awareness of my belovedness. It was a slow dawning, like watching your child grow. You live with it daily, so the growth is imperceptible, but one day you are aware that things are different. Turning points along the way mark our growth, like marks on the door frame mark the growth of our children.

What God says of Jesus at Jesus’ baptism, God also says to us. We are God’s beloved sons and daughters. God is pleased with us. How sad that so many of us have grown up in churches that spent more time telling us we weren’t good enough than in loving us into relationship with God, our Creator.

Ephesians 2:10 reminds us of our special place in our Creator’s heart: For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. God, the Artist, calls us God’s masterpiece! Of course we are beloved!

Coming to awareness of my own belovedness, that slow, slow journey, was aided most by relationships with friends. For most of my adult life, I felt like an outsider. I saw people with deep, close friendships and I longed for such myself. My hesitancy and busyness held me back from giving myself as a friend to others. But when I became part of a community formed of folks with a common longing for a deeper relationship with God, the Academy forSpiritual Formation, I gave myself to the community and others in the community gave themselves to me and to one another. Academy became the soil where my own seed of belovedness began to grow. The people with whom I journeyed in Academy modeled unconditional love and I found a place to call home.

Encouraged by my experience, I began to cultivate life-giving friendships in my local church. Over time, the depth and mutuality of such relationships coaxed my belovedness into full flower. Knowing the unconditional love of friends, I better understood the unconditional love of God.

It has not been a straight, linear journey. Several months ago I was faced with a situation that violently shook my awareness of belovedness. But thanks be to God, through the love of God shown to me directly and the love of friends who incarnated God for me, I am reclaiming my belovedness.

What I want you to know is that it is often a slow and difficult process to truly know in your deepest heart that you are beloved. It may be your whole life’s journey to accept and embrace your belovedness. But it is the journey that changes us, that shapes us into people who can truly love one another and God deeply, intimately, and wholeheartedly. I pray you will come to know, if you don’t already, your own belovedness. You are God’s masterpiece!

Christ's Generous Fullness

From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace

                                                                                                                John 1:16

 Fullness. In the midst of Christmas celebrations, many of us know about fullness. Full schedules, full houses, full stomachs, even full trash cans as boxes and wrapping paper are discarded.

Yet all these are temporary, fleeting expressions of fullness. In fact, they distract us from the Source of true fullness, the Word who became flesh and made his home among us. What our hearts hunger for is not another piece of pie, or more activities or the latest gadget, but this grace upon grace that John can hardly describe. Words are inadequate to capture the utter richness of who Jesus is and what he longs to give to us.

I recall a prayer I heard once, offered by Sister Kathleen Flood at a 5-Day Academy for Spiritual Formation. She prayed, asking God to forgive us for being content with crumbs when God wants to give us the entire loaf. And this is what we do far too often—we grab crumbs, holding onto moldy, dry crumbs when a warm, fragrant, freshly baked loaf is offered to us. Whether we think we are unworthy for such a gift, cannot be vulnerable enough to be a recipient rather than a giver, or simply cannot trust that God loves us so generously, we turn down treasure and hold onto trash.

We choose crumbs whenever we choose fear over love, when we are more concerned with security than with generosity, when we struggle to meet expectations rather than relaxing into freedom to be who God created us to be. We especially do it at Christmas when we substitute shopping, food and materialism—dry crumbs—for the freshness that comes with realizing that we are sons and daughters of God, uniquely loved by our Creator.

Only a few recognized or understood Jesus when he lived among us in skin. Even today, many do not understand that Jesus came to set us free from fear, from imprisoning rules and expectations. Jesus came to show us what love is, in all its warmth, freshness and fragrant goodness. There is no end to his grace and love. It is we who choose to live in scarcity, to eat crumbs.

St. Catherine of Siena expresses the abundance, the fullness of grace in this short poem:

We know nothing until we know everything.

I have no object to defend

for all is of equal value

to me.

I cannot lose anything in this

place of abundance

I found.

If something my heart cherishes

is taken away,

I just say, “Lord, what

happened?”

And a hundred more

appear.

Living in the fullness of grace upon grace, we don’t have to subsist on crumbs, living as if love is a scarce possession. Love begets love, generosity begets generosity and grace is unending and abundant, a fragrant, limitless loaf!

Advent Words

More than any year I can recall, this year I have resonated deeply with the words of Advent. The lectionary texts have inspired me, particularly those that speak of one who will come and make things right, who will overcome evil and bring rest to the weary, who will upend the world’s values of power and influence and bring a kingdom where gentleness and goodness prevail. The recurring encouragement to not be afraid has been what I needed to hear.

Each week as I’ve reflected on the words accompanying the Advent candle for that week—hope, peace, joy and love—the themes have worked their way into my spirit. Daily I’ve considered what they mean for me, particularly with regard to the unsettledness in my life and in the world this year.

And the words of two Advent hymns have been on almost continuous loop in my head: Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus and People, Look East. The first speaks to my own desire to be freed from the fears that arise in difficult times as well as my longing for Christ. The second hymn, People, Look East has been a recent find for me, and, probably because I like birds so much, the third verse has been a favorite:

                Birds, though you long have ceased to build, guard the nest that must be filled.

                Even the hour when wings are frozen, God for fledging time has chosen.

                People, look east and sing today. Love, the bird, is on the way.

The reminder that God comes in unlikely times and seasons encourages me to remain hopeful and watchful, because God doesn’t work in predictable or even reasonable (as we think of reasonable) ways. After all, it was an unwed young woman that God chose to be the mother of Jesus, and an elderly woman was chosen to be the mother of John the Baptist.

When life is difficult, when we earnestly try to live a faithful life only to be misunderstood, criticized or bullied, we truly cry, “Come, Lord Jesus!” When illness, vocational uncertainty, death or broken relationships weigh heavily on us, we long for the coming of a savior to guide us, heal us and comfort us in our sorrow. And even if things are good for us now, we hear the message of Advent for those who are not in an easy stage of life. Savoring the words of Advent prepares us to celebrate Christmas with deep joy and faith, to know that God’s inbreaking in the world changes everything.

Mary's Courage

A while back I saw an advertisement for a sermon series about significant Bible stories and people. Most of the characters featured were people who stood up against an evil force or person seemingly more powerful than themselves. We like such stories about David and Goliath, Elijah defeating the prophets of Baal, and Gideon prevailing against the Midianites. Especially in our culture that values power and strength, we love a story about the underdog whose might and courage overcome difficulty.

Mary doesn’t fit into such a stereotype. In fact, one of Mary’s most quotable lines is, “I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be with me just as you have said.” Hers is an attitude of openness and vulnerability. She is consenting to be the unwed mother of Jesus. To the world she would appear to be promiscuous, engaging in sex before marriage, which would be costly to her. Who would believe her story if she tried to explain her pregnancy?

Mary’s courage is not exhibited through might and aggression, but through her willingness to be misunderstood, wrongfully accused and vulnerable. This was no mighty warrior but a teenager, engaged to be married, who said yes to God without asking permission of her parents or her betrothed, Joseph.

Enuma Okoro, author of Silence and Other Surprising Invitations of Advent, observes that Mary found a supportive friend in her elderly and pregnant relative Elizabeth. Okoro says that we must be discerning in whom we invite to walk alongside us on our spiritual journeys. Mary and Elizabeth shared a similar faith imagination. They both trusted God’s action and love for them, whereas others might have discouraged them from such risky faith.

Had Mary asked her parents if she should consent to be impregnated by the Holy Spirit, they, in an effort to protect her reputation and theirs, likely would have discouraged her. She chose to believe that God would make a way for God’s word to be fulfilled. She was willing to be considered a failure, a disreputable woman because she loved God.

God does not choose to act in ways we consider safe or conventional. God is not bound by moral codes or reputation or our likes, dislikes or fears. God calls us to live lives marked by faith, not fear, by love, not propriety. Mary knew that it wasn’t what others thought of her that mattered, it was her sure knowledge of being beloved by God that sustained her and gave her the courage to say yes to God’s improbable invitation.

Do we know our own belovedness with such certainty that we are willing to say yes to God rather than worry about what others will think of us? Our willingness to trust this unconventional God may be what is needed for Christ to be born in each of us. 

Advent Stillness

Stillness does not come easily to most of us. It is hard enough to be still on the outside, but just try to sit still for even five minutes and you’ll likely find that your mind’s activity is making you as tired as if you were actually moving physically.

Our culture devalues stillness, equating it with a lack of productivity. We’ve lost touch with the concept of fallowness, the practice of allowing a field to rest, so that it can be renewed. When a field lies fallow, it is then better able to provide the goodness seeds need for growth. In this season of winter, we see the bare limbs of a tree and know that even though it appears that nothing is happening, the tree is being made ready for spring’s new growth. Nature can teach us about stillness.

I struggle to be still. I know the value of stillness, but the mindset that activity equates to productivity is so culturally ingrained that it takes great discipline to overcome it and invite stillness. Last Sunday afternoon I chose to sit outside in the yard rather than take a walk. Walking feels more productive to me than sitting, but my spirit was renewed as I felt the gentle breeze on my skin, listened to the birds sing and watched the lengthening shadows fall across the yard.

Waiting and watching—Advent words that we are often too harried to embody—speak to me of fallowness, a stillness pregnant with meaning. In this stillness I let go of the false notion that what God wants most is my activity and realize that it is my heart that God longs for, a heart softened by stillness, a heart prepared to be the birthplace of Christ.