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dreamprayact

~ Reflections of a preacher, poet, and contemplative activist

dreamprayact

Monthly Archives: December 2015

A Child Has Been Born For Us

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Peace with justice, Reflections, Sermon portions

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Child of Bethlehem, Christmas Eve, fear, grace, Isaiah, Israel, justice, peace, peacemaking, Psalms, terrorism, worship

(Originally preached on Christmas Eve 2015 in Santa Barbara, CA)

The world has had a rough year! I suppose that could be said of any year, but there seems to be a heavier sense of worry and fear in the air these days for reasons we all understand. Parents may sense a greater burden when the world feels like it’s going off the tracks. All of us feel the burden though – grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, first responders, counselors, health care providers – all of the adults who care about the generations being raised in today’s world.

Fear is being hyped these days. It’s being bottled and sold on the political trail along with sides of protectionism and militarism masquerading as patriotic fervor. That’s not to say there’s no basis for the fear, only that the escalating rhetoric benefits the ones using it more than it does the public good. Tough talk lets people feel safer in the short term but doesn’t significantly change anything for the better.

The prophet Isaiah wrote during a time of national chaos and despair. In fact, things were about as bad as they could get for those living in the kingdom of Judah. In the midst of geo-political upheaval and shifting alliances in the Middle East, King Ahaz refused to listen to the counsel of the prophet Isaiah who offered him a word promising God’s deliverance from their aggressive neighboring kingdoms. The resulting destruction of Damascus, annexation of large portions of Israel, and deportation of much of the population forms the backdrop of darkness Isaiah describes at the beginning of chapter 9.

The light of the nation had grown dim. It was not just King Ahaz who had chosen this path of destruction; it was the people themselves who were looking for easy solutions to their fears without stopping to listen to the God who had rescued them before. It was the people themselves who had opted for darkness – the darkness of warfare, violence, oppression, and inhumanity. Darkness describes those times when we do not allow the better angels of our nature to come out.

The psalmist, in perhaps the most familiar poetry in scripture, describes darkness as the “shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4). “Even though I walk through the darkest valley,” the psalmist reassures, “I fear no evil; for you are with me.”

We long to be in that state of grace that would enable us to face all of the challenges of life and the troubles of this world without fear, knowing that God remains near. We long also, I believe, for an end to the violence and conflict that touches us not just on an international scale, but much closer to home, and sometimes tragically even within people’s homes. We long for the light of God’s peace to spread throughout the communities and nations in which we live.

Sometimes it is difficult to relate the message of scripture, written in a different time, in ways that will be fruitful and relevant to our lives. Isaiah spoke to a people who had been mired in dark times, their freedoms under threat, their spirits troubled, and he said that God had not given up on them, that God had already broken the yoke of their oppressor.

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness –
on them light has shined. (Isaiah 9:2)

As we gather around the manger, we come to embrace the child of the light! With hearts that ache for this world, with hearts longing for peace, with hearts open to the healing word of God, we come and kneel before the holy child of Bethlehem.

Indeed this is the sign offered by the prophet Isaiah that a new divinely inspired dominion is upon us:

For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
for this time onward and forevermore. (Isaiah 9:6-7)

Stephen Boyd comments, “In the face of the fear, even terror, it is tempting to put our trust in the powerful – those who, seeking their own interests, promise to protect us. In this, our own darkness, Isaiah poses the questions: Will we make room for the Prince of Peace, who orders the world with justice and righteousness? Will we prepare to follow him in peacemaking?”[i]

At Christmas, kneel before the Christ Child who is the very light of God. Poet Ann Weems, in her poem “The World Still Knows,” leads us to the manger with these words:

The night is still dark
and a procession of Herods still terrorize the earth,
killing the children to stay in power.

The world still knows its Herods,
but it also still knows men and women
who pack their dreams safely in their hearts
and set off toward Bethlehem,
faithful against all odds,
undeterred by fatigue or rejection,
to kneel to a child.

And the world still knows those persons
wise enough
to follow a star,
those who do not consider themselves too intelligent
too powerful
too wealthy
to kneel to a child.

And the world still knows those hearts so humble
that they’re ready
to hear the word of a song
and to leave what they have, to go
to kneel to a child.

The night is still dark,
but by the light of the star,
even today
we can still see
to kneel to a child.[ii]

Let us pray:
God of all ages,
in the birth of Christ
your boundless love for your people
shattered the power of darkness.
Be born in us with that same love and light,
that our song may blend with all the choirs of heaven and earth
to the glory of your holy name. Amen.[iii]

Words (c) 2015 Mark Lloyd Richardson (except where noted)

[i] Stephen B. Boyd, “Theological Perspective,” in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, p. 102.

[ii] Ann Weems, Kneeling in Bethlehem, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1980, p. 55.

[iii] The Revised Common Lectionary website, Year C – Christmas, Nativity of the Lord – Proper I (December 24, 2015), Vanderbilt Divinity Library.

In a Stable Lowly

16 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Worship Liturgy

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Advent season, Birth of Jesus, Christ the newborn king, Christmas story, Gospel of Luke, Holy Family, In the Bleak Midwinter, Joseph, Manger scene, Mary's Song, salvation, Worship song

Starry night

Photo credit: Pai-Shih Lee, Flickr Creative Commons

With allusion to Mary’s Song in the gospel of Luke, I wrote these song lyrics several years ago that can be sung to the melody of “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

In a stable lowly comes the One foretold,
wrapped in swaddled clothing warding off the cold.
Stars drift in the evening sky, glisten in the trees,
for this infant holy, born to set us free.

Creatures great and small come gather ‘round his bed;
children poor and friendless sound the earth’s lament.
God throws down the proud and lifts the humble high;
in his strength and mercy, souls are magnified.

God comes near to Mary, Joseph and the child,
blesses and beholds their family strong and mild.
God comes near to humankind in this gentle way,
bends to earth and leads us toward a brighter day.

In this holy season what gifts shall we bring,
to lay before our Savior, Christ the newborn king?
All the treasures we possess have no meaning here;
only hearts flung open, loving and sincere.

Words (c) 2015 Mark Lloyd Richardson
[You may use in worship with my permission]

Emmanuel

13 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Peace with justice, Poems, Prayers, Reflections

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Christmas, compassion, creation care, Earth care, God with us, healing, hope, human suffering, justice, Mystery, mysticism, peace, wholeness

NASA Cloudy Earth medium

NASA Cloudy Earth, Flickr Creative Commons

What was spoken through the prophet is fulfilled:
Look! A virgin will become pregnant
and give birth to a son,
and they will call him, Emmanuel.
(Emmanuel means “God with us.”)

 In bomb-shattered cities
children unable to play freely in the streets

In poverty-wracked slums
families struggling to put food on the table

In violence-plagued neighborhoods
the young learning early that life is cheap

On tear-soaked refugee trails
people desperately looking for a way to freedom

On vulnerable island shores
communities fighting the futile battle against rising sea levels

In the midst of everyday pain,
in the grip of widespread suffering,
the promised one comes and takes up residence among us.

Emmanuel – God with us in our deepest need.

There is no one left out of this divine scheme,
no one whose accident of birth disqualifies them,
no one whose skin color lessens their sacred worth,
no one whose race or gender changes their standing before God,
no one whose religion or lack thereof alters God’s affection for them.

God’s concern is with the whole.
God’s dream is that we all will one day see:
What affects one affects all.
Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
Suffering is never isolated or contained.
We weep with those who weep,
our tears mingling with the tears of divine compassion.

God with us—
the whole human race,
the whole soul-stirring creation,
the whole beguiling mystery of what it means to be alive.

God with us—
in our search for wholeness,
in our poverty of spirit,
in our labor for peace with justice,
in our reaching out with hearts and hands to help,
in our holding on tenaciously to hope.

Words (c) 2015 Mark Lloyd Richardson
Photo Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

 

Making Room in the Inn

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Justice, Peace with justice, Reflections

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Beyond Bethlehem, Christ child, Christmas story, Colorado Springs, compassion, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church, Gospel of Luke, gun violence, human community, Mike Slaughter, Paris, San Bernardino, Syrian refugees

syrian_refugee_crisis

Syrian children march in the refugee camp in Jordan. The number of Children in this camp exceeds 60% of the total number of refugees hence the name “Children’s camp”. Some of them lost their relatives, but others lost their parents.

Scripture is the story of God’s activity in the world, among peoples and cultures, with a universal scope of concern for all creation. The God we come to know in scripture is a God who seeks to gather all of humanity into a community of sisters and brothers, a community of mutual care and hospitality.

The gospel accounts for this time of year set the stage for the Christ child who enters the world in an ordinary stable. We tell the story of Jesus’ birth each year, of course, and like any good story, we don’t mind hearing it again and again. We love the familiar details of shepherds standing transfixed under the night sky and angelic choir visitations.

There is one line though in Luke’s telling of the story that gives me pause this year: “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” ~ Luke 2:7

 This is how life begins for Jesus, with the doors to a place of warmth and shelter closed. Jesus once said of himself – “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” – a poignant reflection from someone who seeks to take up residence in our hearts and lives.

I am led from these traditional images in the story of Christ’s birth to the images of refugees fleeing war, oppression, and violence in our own day. The gospels reveal many of the same conditions in the ancient world. Indeed in Matthew’s telling, the holy family is forced to flee Bethlehem after Joseph is warned in a dream of Herod’s plan to destroy the child. This is followed by a massacre of all of the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or younger. It is a brutal reminder of the inhumanity that has plagued humankind since the dawn of time.

However, it seems as though the world has had more than it can bear of tragedies of late. Most recently in Paris, Colorado Springs, and San Bernardino, we have been witnesses to indiscriminate violence with unclear motives. The victims have been people of diverse races, colors, nationalities, religions, genders, and stages of life. We cannot comprehend the ideology of those who kill so freely and value human life so little. What we do know is that hateful ideology is not defeated on the battlefield. We know that the goal of terrorism is to instill fear; yet scripture teaches us that “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” ~ 1 John 4:18

The story of Christ’s birth, you see, is not told in a vacuum. It is told and retold into the very places that make our hearts ache. It serves as a reminder that it is precisely into the world of human suffering and pain that God finds a way to come and be among us. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “Only a suffering God can help.” God is with us in the tragedies of life in ways that help us cling to hope.

Some lawmakers are suggesting that we shut the doors to refugees from certain regions of the world. They are feeding the fear of the stranger to promote their political careers. Our faith causes us to look at the issues differently, through the eyes of Christ who walked in compassion with the poor and the oppressed and invited them into the kingdom of God.

Recent United Nations statistics tell us that three quarters of the Syrian refugees who are waiting to enter the U.S. are women and young children. Followers of Christ have always felt the call to show compassion to the most vulnerable members of our human family. Times like these test where our true allegiances lie.

I encourage you to go to www.cokesbury.com/beyondbethlehem to see what Pastor Mike Slaughter and Ginghamsburg UMC in Tipp City, Ohio are emphasizing this Christmas. They are challenging their congregations to spend only half of what they normally do on their own family Christmas and give a sacrificial offering that will serve the 60 million refugees Christ loves. Pastor Mike writes, “As Christians entering into this expectant time of advent, let’s welcome those seeking healing and hope as we build strong communities of acceptance, inclusivity and harmony.” May it be so.

Words (c) 2015 Mark Lloyd Richardson
Photo credit: http://www.milwaukeejewish.org/syrian-refugee-crisis/

Poem by the roadside

04 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Poems

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

disciplined life, eternal now, eternity, goals, God, Ground of all Being, morning prayer, mystical experience, nature, presence of God, spirituality, work

side of the roadOn the road
work beckoning
a daily duty
to be productive
to be hard at work
to be diligent in all things
to be focused on the important
to be tied to the meeting of goals
to be steadily progressing in the disciplined life

Only to be stopped in my tracks
stalled into awareness
dared to open my eyes
to the morning unfolding
in the periphery
where the land rises from the depths
in ways that mirror our own emergence
as living beings
within the large and beautiful Ground of all Being

Here the stillness refreshes
and releases me
to live
in the now

in the now of eternity

Words (c) 2015 Mark Lloyd Richardson

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