Advent brings a different story

It’s been a sad day today for us and a stormy day for others. The wind is howling round Ripon and I’ve just come in from seeing some tractors who do a tinsel run every year to raise money for Yorkshire cancer research. It’s wild out there. Someone has just sent me a picture of roof tiles coming off the library roof a few minutes ago which nearly hit him on the head.

Regular readers will know when I have few words I turn to Nadia. I have few words tonight so here’s her plea for a different narrative.

“As we listen to our sacred story this Advent let us tune out not only the noise of cultural Christmas, but also our own assumptions and expectations about what we think this story means. Let us listen together with beginner's ears -- with ears that listen for God's surprising grace. The kind of grace which will knock the wind out of you.

Under the cover of a deep blue Advent darkness may Christ, this holy thief, rob you of your certainty about what you think the story of Jesus is all about. May this thieving God envelop you in the surprising story of God's suffering love which takes from us that which we can really really do without and replaces it all with God's own self.”

In the sadness and the storm God is about. And maybe tonight many of us just need to know that. 

Advent giving rather than getting

Ripon is looking very Christmasy tonight. The shops are full of people getting stuff. In Aldi there are things you never know you needed - but I did leave pigs in blankets in mac and cheese on the shelves! Trollies were being loaded with more than enough to have a good Christmas. Getting more than enough maybe over giving. 

Today is the feast day of St Nicholas. We know he was a bishop of Myra in modern day Turkey, who cared for the poor and vulnerable in his diocese. There are many early accounts of how he did this. The most famous is his provision of three bags of coins to ensure that three young women were not sold into slavery. From this the tradition of giving presents has developed. 

This ensuring the safety of the young was developed in another account of him rescuing some boys who were being boiled alive. There are other accounts to do with his assisting of sailors in peril of their boat sinking. For these reasons Nicholas is the patron saint of children, of seafarers, of pawnbrokers and those who use them, and of various cities and countries. 

It is salutary that it was the original St Nicholas’s care for young women and men at risk that has led to the various modern celebrations that stem from him. His active ensuring of the safeguarding of the young and vulnerable being  at the heart of everything a church is stems from our response to Jesus. As it did his. The tradition of the giving of gifts partially coming from his intervention to ensure the welfare of children. (The other origin being the Magi giving gifts to Jesus.) 

One of the old Christian traditions surrounding St. Nicholas's feast day is for children to leave their shoes out overnight in front of the fireplace, on the windowsill, or outside their bedroom door so that St. Nicholas can fill them with special fruits, sweets, and other small gifts and treats.

Some would leave carrots or hay in their shoes overnight for St. Nicholas's donkey to eat. St. Nicholas takes the hay and carrots for his donkey, and replaces them with small gifts and treats for the children in the morning.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux describes this tradition in her home in France as a small child and recounts how much she loved it. However, for her family this happened not on St. Nicholas's Day but on Christmas Eve.

"I knew that when we reached home after Midnight Mass I should find my shoes in the chimney-corner, filled with presents, just as when I was a little child...Papa, too, liked to watch my enjoyment and hear my cries of delight at each fresh surprise that came from the magic shoes, and his pleasure added to mine."  

In Advent we need to stop and ask whether we give or we grab. Is this a season to ask how grateful we are? In the middle of our troubles we are still blessed. The good things we enjoy in this season are to be savoured gratefully. I love this poem by Mary Oliver. 

We need to be grateful that the gift has been given. God sends us himself. An indescribable gift. Never take the grace of God for granted. May I suggest we get as excited over being gifted it as Alice, below seeing an empty box?!?! 

Here’s a Roman Catholic prayer for today. Enjoy!

Advent peace

I read this blog post from Red Letter Christians today and want to share it as today’s Advent reflection. 

“The promise of ‘Peace’ is ever present in the Advent story. Peace is coming. Jesus is heralded as ‘The Prince of Peace’. The shepherds are told ‘Don’t be afraid’ - which is about experiencing ‘peace’.

 

Peace is often understood to be an external thing. It is the reality of the absence of this peace that tends to dominate news headlines. It may be peace between two divided elements – divided people, communities, tribes, countries.

 

The good news is that we can create and build peace, but we only consider peace to be something existing outside of us.

 

However, the promise of peace heralded in this Advent journey and the Christmas story is not just being about external peace. It is about inner peace too, our inner peace. There is an invitation to all of us to know the kind of peace that dwells deeply in us and it is from this place that we can truly be peace-makers in the world around us. It becomes our inner story shaping who we are and who we are becoming.

 

Father Richard Rohr sums this up by saying, ‘Transformed people transform people.’ Peace-filled people bring peace, in and through all that they do.

 

Today, may we discover a greater inner peace – one founded in the Source of all life and all peace. May our ‘peace-fullness’ overflow into our words, our actions, and our behaviours and so bring peace to others. And may this peace light up homes and communities wherever we are found.”

Amen to that! 

Advent mixed messages…

It’s easy to get confused in these weeks. Is it Advent or is it Christmas? At school today after my collective worship the children were told very firmly “it’s not Christmas yet so you needn’t be silly. There are two weeks and two days of school to go.” I probably didn’t help the outbreak of silliness as I did a collective worship on waiting and got the children to form a queue and I asked them what they might be queuing for. We were doing alright until one of said “the toilet” and of course the word “toilet” for some reason provokes snorting!! 

The same children were tonight doing Christmas even though it isn’t Christmas. They were singing carols at Boroughbridge light switch on and late night shopping. 

It’s as easy for us preachers to get confused. Do we preach Christmas coming and baby stories? But hasn’t he already come so shouldn’t we be anticipating the kingdom and judgement and his return? Isn’t it Christmas every day really? Discuss! 

It was whatever good today on the fourth day of Advent to see a town anticipate Christmas. We all need some comfort and joy. And we were doing fine until it started raining very hard and the Methodist biscuits and leaflets started to get very wet… so we baled early. 

And what was also good was how many people knew me as I mingled tonight. I told the children at school to come and find me tonight. One little boy introduced me to his Mum:

“This is Rev Ian. He’s the new Rev Karen. (Rev Karen is the former vicar who has moved on. I’m covering the school while there’s an interregnum even though I’m a different flavour.)  “But he has a different name!” Isn’t that great? 

Advent promise of good things

I’m writing this trying to keep awake before a zoom meeting about church toilets! We’ve just had a lovely church Christmas meal together. The food was superb and the conversation good. There was a positive and happy spirit about.

Part of the Advent narrative is about a positive encounter with things that might do us good. Christmas pudding isn’t that good  for us but it does us good! A bit of comfort and joy! If you read the Advent Bible readings they are about God coming to us with good things. We have to look forward to them as much as we looked forward to our Christmas dinner together today. We need to travel these Advent days with expectation and enthusiasm.

This morning I did collective worship at Fountains School. The worship ended with them singing We Three Kings. A bit early! Very early! I was standing by the reception children and one of them belted out Star of Wonder in a broad Yorkshire accent, louder than anyone around her. Harriet was responding appropriately to the news of a star. I told her she’d made my morning! Are we as happy about what is coming? God is preparing good things for those who love him. That’s the Advent promise. 

There are always good things ahead. Things of wonder. I rang back one of my folk who left a message earlier and she told me she was in the middle of making stained glass biscuits for tomorrow. How fab! (We have a stall at late night shopping tomorrow night :))

Advent waiting

Waiting can be frustrating. I’ve never been good at sitting in traffic jams. Here’s one from this morning just outside Grewelthorpe. Several cars and a coach wanted to go one way and a Tesco delivery van and several other cars wanted to go the other way. In the middle of us all was an elderly lady in a red car getting more and more stressed. I think she was in the other queue of traffic but she ended up in mine! 

All I could do was be patient and wait even if it meant I was late for a 9am school assembly. Sometimes our time isn’t how we’d like it to be.

Maybe we need to learn in a frantic world waiting might need to be enforced on us. 

However, I still don’t like being stuck in traffic! 

Advent - longing for light

One of the places where people’s pent-up anger spills out is a self service checkout in a supermarket when it won’t scan the bar code of your shopping. The other day there came a message on the screen after my bread wouldn’t scan: “please wait, someone is coming to help you.”

 

We enter today into the season of Advent. A time of preparation, of longing, of repentance, of watching and waiting for God, who is the someone coming to help us.

 

And this Advent, we need help! With war and threat and violence and uncertainty, with discrimination and a lack of community and a yearning for peace, we pray, come, Lord Jesus. Please come and help us.

 

I think this need for comfort and help is why Christmas lights go up so early. The Advent of God long ago in human form began in the dark. The darkness at creation was flooded with light. The Psalmist sang that the Lord is our light and our salvation. Isaiah said with confidence about a new ruler to come that the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Jesus came to a dark world to be the light of the world.

 

Isaiah foresaw it. Isaiah records the arrival of a leader, the formation of a government, that makes a definite difference to the fate of a nation. Comparing before and after this transformational event is like comparing night with day. Literally the difference between dark and light. This darkness depicted at the end of Isaiah 8 does not appear suddenly.

As you walk through the first eight chapters, you can sense the light is starting to fade. There is deepening darkness that overcoming and overwhelming the people of God to that point where Isaiah informs us of the ‘distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish’ telling of those who ‘will be thrust into thick darkness’ and then into this darkness, comes light. A divine intervention, a transformation, at the start of Isaiah 9 that makes all the difference. ‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of thick darkness, on them has light shone.’  Before there is distress and darkness. Gloom and anguish. And then comes a light. Gloom turned to glory. Grief turned to gladness.

 

Please allow for a few moments of nostalgia. Every year at this time of year the Blue Peter team on children’s television would make their own version of an Advent Crown. John Noakes, Peter Purves and Valerie Singleton are among the names I recall from my childhood..

Two wire coat hangers, silver tinsel, four candles and four Christmas baubles, transformed into their Advent wreath.

 This activity always forewarned us that Christmas was approaching, and we should be getting ready.

We need a time when we remember God listens to our deepest desires and assures us, he won’t leave us. We need a time when we stop our busyness and look for where God comes around us. We need a time when all we do is wait on God and expect his incarnation in our experience. We need a time when we look up and see the Kingdom coming again and await not a rerun of the first Christmas but an expectation that Jesus will return in glory – soon – and that his Kingdom will never end. We need to know despite ourselves and our world, there is a different story about.

 

And we need to enter the darkness. The Advent darkness points to the light of Christ. We need to accept darkness is real. We had a circuit gathering at Snape the other week. I parked in their car park. When we came out the car park was pitch black, there were steps to deal with. It was dangerous. I then couldn’t see my car. Thank God for a torch on my phone! We need to have conversations in the dark, the darkness of uncertainty, of pain, of confusion.

We have to admit that dark times are real. Last week I was at a school reunion. My year group had not seen each other for forty years. We acknowledged that for some of us school was dark and damaging and we shared a solidarity that we got through the darkness together and there was an enormous sense of healing as we found each other again and shared honest stories of how it wasn’t easy.

 

The prologue to John’s Gospel is read on Christmas morning but I’m drawn to it on Advent Sunday this year. We feel overcome and overwhelmed, I think. The help needed is urgent. Here’s the good news – God works in the dark and floods it with light. I’m travelling backwards and forwards from Leeds each night this week. People are very slow to dip their headlights on country lanes. All I can see for a while is a dazzling brightness which I cannot cope with.  

 

Yet maybe that’s what God’s light is in us. It’s so radically different from the darkness it takes a time to get used to it. The light, the help is coming. Please wait. God works in the dark. We need the darkness in order to see the light. And God works from there. Here’s an extract from  Barbara Brown Taylor’s book Learning to walk in the dark…

 

“As many years as I have been listening to Easter sermons, I have never heard anyone talk about that part. Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave, it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air. Sitting deep in the heart of Organ Cave, I let this sink in: new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”

 

I love the story told recently in a service by a Bishop, of a man who had fallen down a very large hole and he screamed for help.  Most people ignored his cries but then a man looked down at him in the hole and suddenly jumped in it landing next to him. “What on earth are you doing?” asked the man who’d cried for help. The man said “I’ve been in holes like this before and I know how to get out of them.” Help is at hand! Please wait, someone is coming to help you.

 

I saw another message in another shop several months ago. It said “we’re getting ready for Christmas. We apologise for any disruption while we make these changes.”

 It won’t happen, but I reckon we should stop all meetings in Advent and just have bible studies and prayer meetings and silence and just tell the story to people. We need to disrupt our routine to meet him who wishes to disrupt our lives again. This Sunday some people are holding Christingle services, and some will light one candle on an Advent ring. This is all about hopeful anticipation.

 

Emmanuel, God with us, 
our world waits in darkness, 
longing for your light. 

May the light of peace 
dispel the darkness of conflict, 
so war and wounding cease, 
and all people can live in safety. 

May the light of hope 
illuminate the journey  
of refugees seeking sanctuary, 
as the Holy Family was forced to do. 

May the light of healing 
kindle in us a new vision 
of all creation made new, 
leading us to courageous action. 

May the light of love 
warm our hearts as we wait 
for the coming of Christ, 
the Light of the World.

He is coming to help us. We watch and we wait.