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Advent 4 — Love
The Good News Written
Charles Fillmore:
“The birth of Jesus was foretold and arranged beforehand. It was not left to chance. His mother “magnified” the Lord before He was born. This illustrates the truth that it is necessary to have order from the very beginning.
“The same law holds good in our body and our affairs. The power of the word should be expressed in our homes. We should surround ourselves with words, suggestive of spiritual things. If words count, and we know they do, we should be careful of every belief taken into consciousness through the eye as well as through the ear.”
Luke 1.39-47 (NRSV)
39In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the holy Spirit 42and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the [Eternal].” 46And Mary said, “My soul magnifies [my God], 47and my spirit rejoices in… my Savior.
The Good News Proclaimed
Another jewel would be cool big daddy, they’ve got a sale going on at Tiffany’s.
Last year’s mink was fine for a while but Santa, honey, its now out of style, so…
Put the loot in the boot, Santa, if you want to share my company.
Put the jack in the sack, Nicky, and bring it right down to me.
Another deed’s what I need, Nicky, uranium mines suit me to a tee.
Although gold and platinum are nice, its uranium or no dice
Put the loot in the boot, Santa, then I’ll let you share my company.
Do we worship violence (the angry God)? Do we worship maleness (the god that can only be known by male images and pronouns)? Do we worship exclusion (the god who won’t allow women clergy, who can’t see the beauty of love shared between persons of the same gender, who only recognizes one religion, or who prefers one nation to all others)? We are made in the divine image, and our image of the divine will influence what we are becoming. Which image of God have we enshrined in our hearts?
There is the Room-service God : willing to provide you with everything from a wake-up call to breakfast in bed to someone to schlep your luggage…but you’ll have to ask for these favors, and if you tip, well, service might even be better in the future.
There is God the mob-boss: Doling out favors with one hand and breaking knuckles the other. Generous when you show the proper respect; merciless when you don’t.
There is God the Garbage Collector: Worshipers of this god feel their lives are filled with sinful debris…their prayers are all about having this God wash away their sins, carry away their innate depravity…they are always asking for forgiveness. They believe their lives are polluted with sinful trash, but if they ask God to take away some of the filth they might not smell quite so terrible, at least part of the time.
And there God the petulant child (or God the brat): Brat God tells us…give me this and I’ll love you. Give me this and I’ll kiss you goodnight. Give me this and I’ll behave. Give me this and I won’t embarrass you. Give me this and I’ll make you proud. Give me this and I’ll do what you want…PUT THE LOOT IN THE BOOT IF YOU WANT TO SHARE MY COMPANY.
I’ve encountered, and even worshiped each of these false gods in my life. And learning that each one is a graven image far too limited to truly be called God, I have discarded first one and then the other. As we go deeper and deeper into the Mystery of Infinite Life, we are bound to discard old ideas and images and embrace new ones along the way. As St. Paul said, “When I was a child, I thought like a child…but when I became an adult, I put away childish things.” If our theology hasn’t changed much over the last few years, we probably haven’t grown much, and we may want to open ourselves to newer, more life-giving understandings.
The god that is THIS (whatever this is) is an idol…standing in the way of a transcendent experience of the infinite Source of unending life. A god that excludes non-Christians isn’t god (Good) enough…a god that excludes women from any part of social, religious or political leadership isn’t god enough…a god that can only see the holiness of love shared by people of opposite genders isn’t god enough…a god that can answer to only one name isn’t god enough…a god that is limited by the human conditions of gender, race, nationality, sexual orientation or religious affiliation isn’t god enough.
Do you remember the golden calf that Aaron made and that Moses destroyed? The golden calf was the image of Apis, the bull god of Egypt (the oppressive system Moses people had left…why bring the oppressive thinking with them?!). The golden calf was a tribute to an oppressive past and that just wasn’t god enough for Moses. Are we courageous enough to destroy our idols so that we might have a fresh, a larger, a more inclusive and life-giving experience of the divine?
How might God be more than we’ve allowed ourselves to imagine?
We might think of God as the power of beginnings (Genesis 1.1).
God is the strength and comfort in difficult times (Psalm 73.26).
God is the universal presence, the energy of life in which we live and move and have our being (Acts 17.28).
God is Ruach or Pneuma, Spirit…the vital forces of life, the flowing, dynamic heartbeat of the universe (John 4.24).
God is Wisdom (John 1.1).
God is peace (Judges 6.24).
God is Isness, expressing in, through, and as us (Exodus 3.14).
God is power – not dominance, but real strength that doesn’t have to bully others to feel strong (Exodus 15.2).
God is like a mother (Is. 66.13), like a father (Rom. 8.15), like an eagle (Dt. 32.11), like a dove (Mark 1.10), like a rainbow (Ez. 1.28)…and so much more than any of those.
God is the All-in-all (Col. 3.11).
God is the love that is the all-in-all.
(1 John 4.16)
As we approach Christmastide, we are waiting to rediscover that God is love, and the love that God is, is omnipresent. God is the love that is the all in all! What a scandal to say God showed up in a barn, in a feeding trough, in a homeless unwed teenage girl’s son. That required people to destroy some old idols and to open their minds and hearts to new possibilities. We are meant to see the divine in that baby…in the humblest and least likely of all circumstances, places and people…not just to make the baby be one
more idol! but we are to see the infinite love that is as present in the helpless, marginalized, homeless baby as in the grandest cathedral, basilica, temple or mosque. Christmas reminds us that God’s love is omnipresent, it is the truth of our lives, our world, our endless being. The Christmas story that we will celebrate in a few days says that God, Divine Love is so inclusive, that even a peasant baby lying in a feeding trough, a manger, can be where we experience this God in new and life changing ways.
People will often say, “I agree that God is love, BUT…”
But?
. Really?
What if we really believed the imagery of Christmas…a baby laid in a feeding trough instead of a crib, Persian astrologers practicing their religion, shepherds living outdoors in the fields, an unwed teenage mother, Jewish people in a land occupied by Roman forces…these are the characters in our Christmas narratives…the story screams that God is unconditional and all-inclusive love, love that seeks to be expressed in places and in ways that others have excluded or condemned. The Christmas story says, “God is love” and there is no but. The Christmas story says God is love, PERIOD. And this love is the all-in-all…in us, expressing as us. This is the miracle of the season, and this is the good news.
© Durrell Watkins 2009
…because, you know, God is love. Really?
Divine Love is the All-in-all.
I trust that I am a creation of love.
I know that my love is an expression of God.
Love is blessing my life now.
I expect and accept miracles.
And so it is.
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