Wealth and Worth

But how terrible for you who are rich, because you have already received your comfort. How terrible for you who have plenty now, because you will be hungry.  

                                                                                                                Luke 6:24-25a

Recently I was part of a group studying Luke 6:17-31. When we got to the verses above, the discussion grew tense, pointed and critical. Like a hot spotlight, the group quickly moved the conversation from the recognition that we are the ones who have plenty and that Jesus’ comments might therefore be directed toward us. Instead the spotlight’s heat was focused on a more comfortable target—the poor—as some questioned who deserves our charity and how much charity is adequate.

When we equate wealth to worth, we pervert the message and example of Jesus. When we make ourselves the judges of who is worthy to receive our help, our arrogance is apparent. And when we believe that material wealth is a sign of God’s blessing, we make a mockery of the life of Jesus, who had no place to lay his head. (Luke 9:58).

It is a hard task to hold wealth with detachment, humility and faith. We cling to it, putting our trust in it to save us and we look to it to gauge our self-worth. The difficulty of having wealth and giving oneself in devotion to Christ is why Jesus said “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other or you will be loyal to the one and have contempt for the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Matthew 6:24)

You cannot serve God and wealth. But we don’t really believe that, as evidenced from the way many of us live, anxious about our assets and questioning whether and how much to give to others. That is why when passages such as the one from Luke are studied, people get tense and critical. We want to justify our lifestyle choices and try to make them fit with Jesus’ teachings, much in the way we might try to fit into clothing too small for us. Instead of justifying ourselves, it is better to acknowledge our need to be changed and to pray for a heart that desires to be changed. A glad and generous heart gives out of love for Christ, recognizing that all are made worthy by Jesus’ death on the cross, not by the balance in one’s bank account.  Holding wealth with detachment means we give without expectation, we give because love compels us to give, and we trust God with the outcome of our giving.

Bearing Emmanuel

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”

                                                                                                Matthew 1:23

Bear—It is a word rich with meaning. The dictionary gives these definitions for bear:

o   carry

o   support

o   endure

o   give birth to

o   turn and proceed in a specified direction

Mary carries Jesus, the Son of God, the Divine Godself, in her womb. The Light of the world was in her. Mary, by giving birth to Jesus, bears him throughout her life. Parents know that their lives are always bound up in the lives of their children for as long as both parent and child live. One never outgrows the connection with the other. Mary bears both Jesus’ rejection and his acceptance, his miracles and his crucifixion, and his resurrection. Mary bears it all, enduring the achingly agonizing death of her son, the one whose conception was announced by the angel.  She remains by the cross, supporting her son with her presence, and in the Pietà, we see Mary supporting her dead son’s body.

We too are called to bear Christ, to carry Christ within us, to let Christ be born in us and in the world by the way we let the Light shine in us. Each one of us is called to bear Christ and as we do so Emmanuel happens now—God is with us.

We are the reason Christ comes. It is only as we bear Christ that Christ lives in the world among us. Advent is not only a time of waiting and watching for the Messiah to come. It is a time for us to prepare our wombs, our hearts, to bear Christ and bring forth Christ into the world. It is how Christ comes each Christmas, through the faithful preparation of our hearts to receive him but not for ourselves alone. We give birth to Christ as we are part of his work in the world.

I pray that we all, male and female alike, have wombs prepared for the coming of Emmanuel.

Active Waiting

The waiting is the hardest part. – Tom Petty

We are not a culture that embraces waiting. Five-minute oatmeal is not fast enough for us. Most of us would rather do something than to be still, even as we complain of having too much to do! And if we are still, it is often to watch someone else do something by watching sports or other entertainment.

Tom Petty is right – the waiting is the hardest part. But in this season of Advent, we are called to wait, and wait, and wait some more. Most of us ignore this call, choosing instead to rush from store to store and event to event. We eat too much, shop too much and spend too much money. We reject the message of Advent to wait and watch.

In the Common English Bible, Psalm 37:3 says: Trust in the Lord and do good; live in the land, and farm faithfulness. Farm faithfulness – it’s an interesting choice of words, one that offers a good example of how to actively wait.

There is waiting inherent in farming but it is not a complacent waiting. The farmer plants seeds and then waits for them to grow, but soil must be cultivated, plants must be thinned, and the growing plants must be cared for if they are to bear fruit. Our spiritual lives benefit from this sort of active waiting.

Fruitful active waiting can only happen by our attention and intention. We have to push back the temptation of our culture, especially in this season, to only be consumers – of products, food and activity. If we are to farm faithfulness, we will have to wait. But we are given a great gift if we will choose to wait. Our active, faithful waiting produces in us the fruit of patience. This superfruit combats anxiety and overconsumption and promotes trust and peace.

Cold Turkey

The holidays are here. Beginning with Thanksgiving, the season of setting the bar too high is upon us. What should be a time of joy and wonder often dissolves into frustration and unmet expectations. The season can be a time of peace and anticipation if we choose to approach it with a sense of expectancy rather than expectation. While these two words sound similar, they could not be more different.

Expectancy implies unknowing. We wait with a certain amount of breathless anticipation and wonder for what might happen. Expectation, on the other hand, is a preconceived notion of what will happen. Expectancy lives in mystery. Expectation lives in concreteness. Expectancy welcomes surprise. Expectation hates surprise.

Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving. I had purchased the turkey and was planning a meal that could be easily prepared in an unfamiliar kitchen. We were traveling to my parents’ house in Tennessee, which we have been cleaning up since my dad, who was my last surviving parent, died last year. While I wasn’t looking forward to the work we would be doing, I was glad to have the opportunity to spend time with one of our sons. But because I’ve been facilitating an Advent study, where the Sunday prior to Thanksgiving we had talked about approaching the season with a sense of expectancy rather than expectation, I sought to practice expectancy toward Thanksgiving.

So when I discovered that my son’s plans had changed, I was not disappointed. My husband suggested we do turkey sandwiches, so we could focus our energy on our cleaning project, which was the reason for our trip to Tennessee. On our way to my parents’ house, we stopped at a favorite store in Chattanooga and bought some good bakery bread, deli turkey and a delicious pumpkin pie. Purchasing our dinner was great fun, because the store was offering samples of different pies and we tried all the different ones before deciding which one to buy.

Because we approached the holiday with a sense of expectancy, we enjoyed our meal, we enjoyed being with each other, and we made a good memory in the midst of a different way of celebrating Thanksgiving. Had we had a certain expectation for the celebration, we would surely have been disappointed. Expectancy allowed us to be fully present in the moment, and to savor it with joy!

I invite you to approach the season, and frankly, all of life, with a sense of expectancy, not expectation. Let expectancy become a spiritual practice and allow yourself to encounter God and others with freshness and wonder.

Creating Hospitable Holidays

Earlier this week, I spoke to a group about hospitality. As we enter a season where many of us will either open our homes to others, or be the guests of others, it seems a good time to reflect on hospitality as a spiritual practice.

Christian hospitality is more than good manners. Whether we are the hosts or the guests, we should assume a posture of humility and vulnerability. This is likely more obvious if we are the guest in the home of another, but it should also be the case if we are hosting another in our home. As the host, we assume the posture of a servant. As Parker Palmer suggests, we let the stranger be a stranger. Even if our guests are family members, we allow them the space to simply be themselves.

Yet many times, family gatherings can turn into efforts at manipulation and domination, not expressions of love and humble service. If you have shared a meal with family or friends, and the topic of conversation has turned to what someone either at the table or absent from it has or hasn’t done or should or shouldn’t do, you know it is not an open or welcoming place to be. That is especially true if you are the target of another’s criticism or manipulation, but even if you are not the target, such conversation is uncomfortable and uncaring (although it may be couched as being for one’s own good).

St. Augustine said, “The human race is inquisitive about other people’s lives, but negligent to correct their own.” He says this because some seemed to have a prurient interest in the sexual excesses of his life prior to his conversion. When holiday gatherings become opportunities for interrogation and criticism about the lives of family members either present or absent, hospitality is nonexistent. This is true even if the inquisition is framed as loving care or concern.

Augustine goes on to say, “A brotherly person rejoices on my account when he approves me, but when he disapproves, he grieves on my behalf.” True grief on behalf of another does not manifest itself in manipulation and criticism. May we practice such hospitality this season that others feel comfortable and welcome in our presence. Let us rejoice and grieve with those with whom we share space, not criticize, manipulate or interrogate them. Let us make space for grace and love.

The Demise of Humanity

Last night I was in the San Francisco International Airport, awaiting a flight back home. I witnessed something solemn and moving—a ceremony to honor a fallen Marine, whose body had been flown in on a commercial airline flight. A variety of people lined up at a window to watch as two fire trucks sprayed an arc of water over the top of the airplane as it taxied to the gate. We observed the flag-draped casket taken from the plane by a Marine Honor Guard and the family of the soldier gathered around each other and the casket. As we stood silently watching the ceremony, quiet and respectful, one woman stood by the window, also watching, but absorbed in a cell phone conversation. Her voice was the only sound in the area save the regular canned airport announcements that continued their unbroken cadence. As twenty or thirty people watched loss unfolding before them in silence, this woman continued her conversation, oblivious to the solemnity surrounding her.

Maybe I was more acutely aware of her intrusion because I had just come from Grace Cathedral, where I had walked their labyrinth and participated in a service of Evening Prayer before leaving for the airport. The experience of silence, reflection and worship was still fresh in me. What I recognized as I grieved with the soldier’s family and the larger human family that surrounded me at the window is that our efforts to multitask, our attempts to be more and more productive, rob us of our humanity. We, in our fast-paced Western society, don’t know how to stand still, shut up, take our phones out of our ears and acknowledge life and death going on right in front of us. We have become so robotic that we cannot pause to act like human beings.

At 9:00 p.m. San Francisco time, this same woman was sitting behind me at the gate talking business. I could tell she was returning from a convention, so Atlanta or somewhere in the southeast was home for her. Talking business at 9:00 p.m. is bad enough, but she was talking to someone 3 time zones later about the next day’s work.

St. Irenaeus said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” It seems to me that we strive to be less and less alive and instead choose to function more like robots, devoid of compassion, unaware or uncaring of the needs of others, and focused on productivity at all costs. Glory in our culture derives from greater productivity. But what glorifies God is when we are fully alive, attentive to all of life as it unfolds around us.

What We Worship

I am participating in a small group that is reading Advent Conspiracy. We are doing this study now so that we might prepare ourselves to celebrate Christmas as a Christian holiday. The authors of the book note that the fastest growing religion in the world is consumerism. If that is true, and I believe it is, then Christmas has become consumerism’s biggest holiday.

I have often heard that we can determine what we worship by looking at our calendars and our checkbooks. I wonder how much time those of us who claim to follow Christ will spend preparing our hearts for the birth of Jesus versus how much time we will spend making lists, scouring ads and shopping from now until December 25. Our time and our money will indicate the object of our worship.

It is no easy task to leave behind the idolatry of consumerism. I don’t claim to be successful at it. But I recognize that what fills my time fills my heart, and I hope to make a change in what fills my time between now and December 25. If my heart is full of the trappings of consumerism, then I am like the Bethlehem inn, with no room in which Jesus can be born.

Every Advent brings the opportunity to clean out the things that clutter my heart to make room for the birth of Jesus. As we approach the season of Advent, it is not too early to choose well what we will worship. I pray to choose well for myself, and to allow space for grace when I fail to choose the One Who comes to bring life.