Expectantly thankful?

Beacon of Hope, Thanksgiving Square*

     It is hard to be writing an Advent piece before it is actually here, and before Thanksgiving for that matter.  To solve my dilemma of not wanting to skip over Thanksgiving and therefore minimize the importance of  attempted to read the Advent 1 lesson with the lens of Thanksgiving and lo and behold this Advent text is FULL of Thanksgiving!  This week we are in Chapter 12 of The Story and this chapter focuses on three aspects of David's reign:

1. David and Bathsheba, and Nathan's involvement to help David see the truth of his sin
2. David's challenge with his son, Absalom, who committed insurrection and was killed
3. David's preparation for the building of the temple

     Our focus will be on the third portion, which comes from selected chapters from 2 Chronicles and tells of David's preparation for the building of the temple. As our text begins God reveals to David that because of his exemplary military record (and thus the many thousands who died at his command) he will not be allowed to build a temple to God.  Even though God has allowed David to win and has blessed Israel through their victories, it seems that for the temple to truly be a place for God's dwelling it needs to be constructed and overseen by someone with no bloodshed on their hands.  Thus David's son, Solomon, would be 'a man of peace and rest' who could build the temple.
    King David then addresses the people whom Solomon would direct in the building; he emphasizes the fact that the temple will not be for mortals, but for God.  Perhaps this is necessary because King David then goes on to describe how lavish the temple will be, and all of the materials and precious stones and metals he has collected - this promises to be the most opulent structure built to date, and will be a testament to God's unending faithfulness and mercy to Israel.  As our text ends, King David began to praise the Lord in a song of thankfulness:

                                 Blessed are you,
                                     O Lord, the God of our ancestor Israel,
                                     for ever and ever.
                                Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power,
                                     the glory, the victory, and the majesty;
                                     for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours;
                                yours is the kingdom, O Lord,
                                     and you are exalted as head above all.
                                Riches and honour come from you,
                                     and you rule over all.
                                In your hand are power and might;
                                     and it is in your hand to make great
                                     and to give strength to all.
                                And now, our God, we give thanks to you
                                     and praise your glorious name.

In this week of Thanksgiving I find that David's song of praise invites us, too, into the jubilant posture of thankfulness, acknowledging the greatness of God's love and faithfulness.  More importantly, I think, with this attitude of gratitude, we realize just how much we do have - a great key to avoiding the consumer trap that is the holiday shopping season.  As my colleague Julie Schuett said so clearly at our community Thanksgiving service yesterday, "nothing is more satisfying than giving thanks for all you have rather on focusing what you lack."
    
And yet.  And yet this is also Advent, the season of expectant hope.  As much as this is a text about thanksgiving, it is also a text of waiting and anticipation of the temple to be built.

In our culture the season of preparation officially starts the same day as Thanksgiving.  There is no time to be stuck in Thanksgiving, but we are swept up in the preparation for Christmas by the Black Friday sales starting at 8:00 on Thanksgiving night.  The same, I think, is true of our faith. 
     As we simultaneously give thanks for all of God's abundant blessings, we look around us and realize the reality that all is not as it should be.  And so we prepare for that day when it is.  For David and Solomon and all of the Israelites the preparation consisted of readying a physical building.  For us today we prepare our hearts - not necessarily adorning them with jewels and precious metals, but with a ready willingness to have Jesus in our lives.
     Pondering these two themes of Thanksgiving and Advent together have left me pondering the mystery of the paradox: how am I thankful for what I have and still am waiting for?

*Scott, Andy. Beacon of Hope, Thanksgiving Square, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55532 [retrieved November 25, 2013]. Original source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Belfast_(144),_October_2009.JPG.

What are you looking at?

     For Sunday's texts we are focusing on the portion of The Story in chapter 11 where Samuel anoints David as king - even though Israel already has a king in Saul.  It is an interesting story because once again it points to God's working through the least suspected, least qualified, and most surprising of candidates.  As the story unfolds, it appears that Samuel has been sulking over God's decision to appoint a different king.  Perhaps he is taking it especially hard since he warned the people what would happen if they got a king, and he is running around with an 'I told you so' mind frame, or maybe he just secretly wanted it to succeed since the people wanted it so much.  Whatever it was, God had to tell him to stop grieving and get back to work.
     So Samuel goes to Bethlehem where he meets Jesse, the man God told him to find.  Jesse has several sons, and upon seeing the first son, Eliab, Samuel was certain this was the one God had chosen, presumably because of his appearance, based on God's response:  "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not look at things people look at; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."

   This assurance from God is especially comforting for me personally, because based on human standards I fall well short.  Really.  I know I can put on a good show for the public, but there are many things which are sub-par and which can sometimes cause me anxiety.  And the silly thing is (in my head I know it's silly) that it bleeds into all aspects of my life: my parenting, my pastoring, my blogging, and yes, my appearance, as trivial as that sounds.
     So God's words give me great hope in all of this.  When I lose my patience with my two-year-old who is sobbing into the floor because she is tired and refuses to take a nap; when I forget to use tact or loving care with those I meet; when I type something stupid for all of the world to read; when I have a bad hair day; God doesn't care.
     Ok, so God cares.  But God doesn't care, if you get my drift?  God loves me for who I am, and while God rejoices with my triumphs and the Spirit sings when I do something right, those things aren't really what matter to God.
     God cares about the heart, and in the heart we find the truth of who we are.  And, more importantly, even when my heart is in the wrong place (which sometimes it is) I can still find forgiveness.
     So after hearing these words, I am left questioning the mystery of my life and how I look at people.  Do I look at the outward appearance and forget what lies beneath?  Or, knowing that God looks at my heart, do I afford others the same grace?

Like everyone else?

     As we continue our journey through The Story we come to the story of Samuel, the last judge over Israel.  Samuel was a special judge, dedicated to God's service by his mother after she miraculously conceived and bore Samuel.  God came to him one night and called him to be a truth-teller, and from that first call Samuel knew the hardship and difficulty of telling the hard truth, foretelling the ruin of his teacher's family.
     In the text for Sunday we will once again focus on Samuel's hard truth-telling.  This time, however, the truth does not just affect one family but the whole nation of Israel.  The Israelites had looked around at their neighboring nations and noticed something about them: they all had kings.  And, it tells us in 1 Samuel 8 that the people were determined to have a king, so that they would "be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.  It took much dialogue for Samuel to get to the heart of the peoples' desire for a king, but in the end they came right out and said it.  They simply wanted to be like everyone else.

     I can remember growing up and complaining to my mom that 'everyone else' was doing something that I couldn't do.  My desire to fit in and be like everyone else was so strong that I sometimes (and this is not something I'm proud of) went behind my mom's back to do something she wouldn't otherwise let me do.  I suspect that the Israelites would have done the same with Samuel if he had not given them a king in the end, and it goes to show how strong a desire to fit in can be.
     What the Israelites had forgotten was that because of their covenant relationship with God, who had chosen them out of all the other nations, they weren't like everyone else.  They were God's chosen people, set apart, and made holy so that all the nations would see their light and want to know their God.
     The same is true today for us followers of Jesus.  We struggle with the desire to be like everyone else - to have what they have, to do what they do, act as they act, believe what they believe.  But what we forget is that God has chosen us.  In the waters of baptism and joined to Christ, we are set apart, made holy, so that everyone else would see our light and want to know our God.
     As I have been thinking about my own desire to fit in, to be like 'everyone else' I often find myself running back to the baptismal font and reminding myself that God loves me - without the things I think I need, without me acting the way I think I need to act, without believe the way I think I need to believe.  God loves me just as I am, and more than that I am called to be no more than that.  Just me.  I came across this quote recently:

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
    Rudyard Kipling

God is the one who gives us company during those lonely times, comfort during those scary times, and God is ultimately the one who owns us - holds us - loves us.  After reading this text I am left pondering whether what I do, say, and believe comes from God in me or from my own desire to be like everyone else?

Faithful?

 
   This week we are blessed by the hearing of Ruth's story.  It is a wonderful story of faith and love, kinship and redefining family lines.  One of the most quoted verses about faithfulness and love is found in Ruth, and surprisingly it is not spoken between a man and woman, but between a mother and her daughter-in-law. 

Ruth and Naomi, Marc Chagall*

Where you go, I will go;
   where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
   and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die—
   there will I be buried.

What is astonishing about these words spoken by Ruth is that there is nothing for her where Naomi is going.  The men have all died, and the women are now helpless.  It would be better for Ruth to stay in her homeland and find another husband who can provide for her.  

     As many in-law jokes and negative images as there are today (movies like Meet the Fockers and others come to mind) this is a totally different picture and model of what familial relationships mean.  These two women clung to each other when they had nothing else.  And in their faithfulness to each other they find a deep friendship in the midst of the bitterness of life.

     Now of course there is the love portion of the story - Ruth and Boaz, the 'guardian-redeemer' for Naomi.  The Levirite law in scripture provides for a man's widow by ensuring that any living male relatives will marry her and so she will be provided for.  Yet when Boaz goes to the guardian-redeemer (who remains nameless) he cannot marry Ruth for fear that any children they have will take inheritance away from the children he already has, and so the way is made for Boaz to marry Ruth. They have a son, named Obed, who becomes the father of Jesse, who becomes the father of David, King David, who is the ancestor to Jesus. 

     Three times now, in the last three weeks, God has worked through women - the least powerful and lowest in society - to bring about God's will.  Not only that, but Rahab and Ruth are people outside God's covenant with Israel.  Ruth is a Moabite and Rahab was a Canaanite living in Jericho, and these two outsiders become the descendants of Jesus.

     As we talked about last week with God's call of Gideon, God isn't necessarily looking for the best trained or most highly qualified individuals to work in the world, God simply needs a willing heart.  And the beautiful thing is that in the willingness, we are made perfect through our own guardian-redeemer, Jesus.

     When you feel like your faith or willingness is faltering, remember Ruth's words of faithfulness and fidelity, remember her strength and courage, and most of all, remember Christ your guardian-redeemer, whose faith makes ours possible.  So where is God calling you to be faithful?

     

*Chagall, Marc, 1887-1985. Ruth and Naomi, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55328 [retrieved November 5, 2013]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clicks2006/4150846200/.