God-filled power
“God-filled power”
Second Sunday of Advent YEAR A, December 8, 2019
Isaiah 11:1-10 Romans 15:4-13 Matthew 3:1-12
Andrew Kennaly, Sandpoint, Idaho
Gas. Liquid. Solid. Three states of physical existence. Volcanoes, for example, spew hot gasses from inside the earth out into the atmosphere. Volcanoes and the planetary pressures are also hot enough to melt rocks into flowing lava, or magma, and as lava flows it creates rivers of red-glowing molten minerals. When it slows and cools, the lava hardens into rocks, brand new earth.
Water is similar, and when its vaporized as steam or evaporation, the air holds that moisture as a gas. We measure it as humidity. As air cools it holds less moisture so condensation occurs and the water vapor precipitates, often in the form of liquid, called rain or dew. When water cools enough, it hardens into a rock, solid crystals, and we call it ice. We have lots of descriptions for this depending on the unique form that cooled-water-from-liquid-to-solid takes. Snow, sleet, hail, freezing rain, or graupel. These are all unique in how they form, what their structure is, and how they affect the area they land on.
What temperature does water freeze? (32 degrees) I’ll assume you mean 32 degrees Fahrenheit, because 32 degrees Celsius is really hot, 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit. So, if we assume Celsius water freezes at Zero degrees. But then again, it doesn’t. There are exceptions. Clouds can hold super-cooled liquid water that is below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, or zero Celsius. Super-cooling lowers liquids, or gasses, below their freezing point without them turning into solids. Hhmmn!
Sometimes we think we know how things work, and generally these assumptions are true. But if life is also about exceptions, it takes discernment to not get sucked into the assumptions to the point one is blinded, or denying of the exceptions. When we hear John confronting many Pharisees and Sadducees, he’s pointing out one of their assumptions. They assume they are children of Abraham, and because of this, they presume special status, being uniquely blessed, even better than other people, groups, or nations, let alone other species, creatures, or things. John’s very life rejects assumed power, turning his back on high priestly privilege to become a prophet able to critique from the edge of the inside. He knows the system, with all its assumptions, even as he has chosen to live an “exceptional” life.
John introduces the exception. “God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” From this side of the scientific revolution, we know those stones are made up of carbon. They participate in the life cycles of our planet just as much as we do. Our bodies are a collection of molecules, atomic particles that once lived in other physical forms. We are those rocks, we are the ancient forests, we are volcanoes, we are ash clouds drifting around the world, we are star-dust, and to star-dust we shall return. We are created things, in unity with all other created things. The eternal power of God is behind this, as God-filled power enlivens this process we sometimes call ‘evolution.’ No part of our physical body is unique to us; it has all been given as gift from things. If we are attentive, we can notice other things and find appreciation in them, claim the unity of relationship that is already there.
Winters in Minnesota get really long. Christmas comes and goes and there is still a long winter ahead with months of freezing temperatures, strong winds, and blowing snow. When I lived in Minnesota, one of my favorite winter activities was ice fishing. A warm winter meant the ice on the lake only got two feet thick, while a cold winter made it three feet or more. My ice auger, hand cranked, was usually enough to get through it, eventually. My fishing buddy had a shelter so we could fish past dark and catch walleyes and northerns and crappies, and it was really good. But sometime later in winter, as spring starts peeking through the frost, the ice gets unpredictable and too dangerous to walk on, let alone drive on. Sometime around mid-April is the typical time that’s called, “Ice-out.” It’s a magical time, and although the weather is usually lousy, and it’s very cold in a moist sort of way, it is well worth it to bundle up on those windy days in mid April as the ice gives in to wave action of the lake, breaking it up, gathering huge rafts of slushy, chunks of ice as big as your leg and as small as a toothpick, all churning and clanging into each other. Those floating rocks, the solid form of water, ice crystals bump into each other on the surface of rough lakes on stormy spring days, or all through the night; and they sing! Like chimes bumping in the wind, those ice chucks are like floating marimbas, and very subtly play amazing music as they sing their way back into the liquid of the lake. A very stark and long season seems relentless, yet within a few days it goes, and God invites all creation to enjoy the tune of transformation.
I heard a definition this week of the word Righteous. We read about this in Isaiah, as the LORD “with righteousness shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth…” We are given images of lion eating straw like the ox, cows and bears grazing together, and nothing is hurt or destroyed on God’s holy mountain and the earth is full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
Paul, in Romans, talks about living in harmony with one another, based on the archetype, on Christ Jesus, and living centered in Christ, we are made one. Paul celebrates Jews and Gentiles sharing in the glory of God, filled with joy and peace and trust, abounding in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is how things work when things work well. That’s Righteousness: behaving in a way marked by justice, everything working in proper relationship.
Advent is a time when we hold up this vision as it calls us to snap out of our assumptions and look at how exceptional life “in Christ” really is. Advent invites us to recognize that our understandings are different than God’s. We know what would happen if lion and lamb were put in the same pen. We know what would happen if a child played with a poisonous snake by its den. We know what would happen if a bear came around a calf, especially a hungry bear just waking up in the spring. Our understandings seem real enough.
These images of bear, of lion, of snake; maybe they are metaphors; symbols, like the snake being a sign of ancient wisdom, even a source of healing. Maybe if we learn to control our fear, tame our ego, honor deep wisdom, then righteousness is revealed. But how do we learn, how do we change our perceptions of reality, how do we not identify as our thoughts?
Advent invites us to learn, not in penitential ways, as a season of penitence, but in contemplative ways, of experiencing very deeply, truths that are already there. One local pastor suggests that this season is here because before we get to Christmas and the gift of Jesus, we need to face our John the Baptist. Facing John the Baptizer means being honest about our realities. Looking at the metaphors, John talks about grain, with the wheat kernel and the chaff. This is not abnormal! Wheat has chaff, that’s how it’s made, that is the mix! Wheat wouldn’t grow properly without chaff! But chaff must be dealt with, and winnowing is the active process of clearing the grain from the chaff, collecting the edible parts and sweeping away the chaff. Sometimes the chaff is burned, which gives heat and creates ash that is beneficial to the soil, which then can grow more wheat. It’s all connected.
Using another metaphor similar to wheat and chaff together, and being honest about how they work together yet must be processed to claim the most benefit, Mark Longhurst, writes “Beyond Light Supremacy: Let There Be Light *and* Darkness.”
He says,
“In spirituality . . . we elevate the light over the darkness and praise the light and expel the darkness. Light conquers the darkness, the darkness will not overcome the light, John’s Gospel says [1:5]. . . . The more Genesis works its wisdom on me, though, the more light and darkness seem bound up together. . . . God separates light from darkness, but they both need each other, and they both bear the breath of God. This, too, I think, is the truth of our lives. The light and the darkness are bound up with one another. Spiritual transformation does not happen only on the light level. We have to do the inner work of facing the shadow, or repressed realities, of who we are, both the beautiful and the bad. Some of our most painful experiences in life—whether death, divorce, or disease—often turn out to create a capacity in us for greater love. What we think is light shows up in what we think is darkness—and vice versa.”
(Mark Longhurst, “Beyond Light Supremacy: Let There Be Light *and* Darkness,” Patheos (October 11, 2019), https://www.patheos.com/blogs/ordinarymystic/2019/10/beyond-light-supremacy-let-there-be-light-and-darkness/.
Cow and bear, lion and ox, wolf and lamb, leopard and kid, child and viper, wheat and chaff, darkness and light; we cannot live in harmony in the world until we invite God-filled power to help us hold our own paradoxes in proper harmony. Righteousness is an inside job. The process of shadow work is messy and needs to make room for many exceptions, even as a contemplative stance leads us to action that holds love and justice together. God-filled power is moving the world deeper into love, which is the very structure of Reality. Christ Jesus welcomes us on the servant journey which shares the very hope we find as a gift from the God of hope.
May we continue this Advent Season to cultivate awareness of the many ways all creation sings God’s praises. Because the limited assumptions of our mind won’t take us where we need to go, may we open our hearts to perceive this spiritual transformation in the depths of our soul. “A little child shall lead them.” May we invite that child of Wisdom to help us face our realities, and in righteousness, may God’s goodness and humble love be lived and experienced, now, even as forever. Amen.