A long Note to readers: What follows is a reflection on the season of Advent within the Christian calendar. It is the beginning of a new church year. It is considered a time for waiting, introspection and anticipation of the coming of the Christ child at the Nativity, or Christmas as it is most commonly known. This post is the reflection of one liberal retired Protestant pastor. It is not intended to proselytize nor is an attempt to in any way say anything at all about what others do, or do not, believe.
All theological thinking of necessity involves discussion of anthropology. It is the relationship between God and humanity that is at the heart of religion. Without understanding that relationship, and believing that a relationship exists, anything I say about it will mean nothing to a reader who has no faith. St. Anselm said that religion is “faith seeking understanding.” For years I tried it the other way around, thinking that if I understood enough I would find faith. It doesn’t work that way. Any religious person has to make a leap of faith and join with others who practice that faith to have any chance of understanding its meaning.
I have posted this notice because there recently have been some dear OS friends of mine who have been badly wounded by comments on their posts in which they discussed their belief systems. Some have decided that they should never discuss their faith on OS. One has quit OS entirely. Ironically, these members had expressed their beliefs on OS which were radically different than mine. Some of their thoughts totally eluded me and left me bewildered, and they were contrary to everything I think I know about “real” belief systems. But I strongly supported their right to write from their hearts about those beliefs.
It would amaze me entirely if everybody thought like I do about these things, even more so if other Christians did. I am not here to defend God or Christ or the Church. God and Christ can defend themselves far better than I can defend them, and the Church, my Church, still has much to answer for. The Church deserves much of the criticism it gets.
But, before we write, either our posts or our comments on other’s posts, we need to avoid stepping over the line and impugning the very integrity of the writer, be it about religion, politics or, in a recent instance, music.
I also know that I have been on OS for almost two months and have never written a post about the one thing in the world that is the most important to me. I think I have done that because I didn’t want to “cause trouble.” Well, I still don’t want to cause trouble, but I have decided that I should not withhold from my good friends here on OS my thoughts on what I believe. I hope that those of other belief systems and those who have no belief system at all will be able to find some value in this reflection. I am certainly not posting it as the beginning of some big argument about religion. This is not an invitation to fight. It is an invitation to those who want to read it to do so, and to those who do not like posts like this one to simply not read it.
Advent is a time for waiting; for waiting and watching and listening for the coming of the Lord. It is clear from practically every page in the Bible that God wishes to be present with us, his people.
Yet it is equally clear that we, his people, as often as not, do not believe that God is present. And, when we feel that way, we may feel embarrassed and ashamed because we tell ourselves that, if our faith were strong, we would always feel the presence of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit, in our lives.
We may even feel that we are unique in feeling the absence of God, especially if we are around one of those Christians who is always telling us how God is with them incessantly. We think, “If she is in constant, direct, communication with God all the time, what’s wrong with me?” And, we think, “The saints of the Bible seldom felt the absence of God in their lives. Why do I?”
Well, nothing could be farther from the truth. The truth is that the great saints of the Bible often felt that God was not present in their lives, and they often felt that he was not present on purpose! Page after page of the Bible describes the saints of God as feeling totally bereft of God’s presence.
Why do you think that Isaiah cried, in anguish and frustration, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!?” It certainly wasn’t because he’d been having coffee with God every morning. Isaiah felt that God had abandoned him and his people -- because of their wickedness, of course, but abandoned them nevertheless.
The 22nd psalm, which is attributed to David, the greatest of the Israelite kings, begins with the poignant lament, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And continues, both begging and accusing, “Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?” And more” “O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.” The psalms are full of such laments, laments to a seemingly silent, absent God.
And, lest you think it is only ordinary humans who feel this way, remember that Jesus himself, from the Cross, cried the lament of David, word for word, as he prayed to His Father, “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?”
The feeling that God is absent, that God ignores or does not hear our pleas, is not something we invented. And, if it signals a certain weakness in our faith, it is certainly a weakness that is universally felt. We are in good company, in the company of saints and of sinners.
And yet, as we prepare to remember the coming of the Christ Child at Christmas, we are called to wait, to watch and to listen for this often seemingly absent God to speak to us this Advent, and to await His coming. I know that there are many for whom God has seemed very absent lately. And, if he doesn’t come to them, settle in their hearts, this Holy Season, they figure that will be just another blow that blow that they will have to bear, so why bother with it at all.
Isaiah prays the prayer of one who longs for God, yet cannot see or hear Him; the prayer of one to whom God appears absent. Most of us should be able to identify with that. Do any of you know what that feels like? Have you ever prayed, but felt like you were only talking to yourself?
Have you ever stood beside the bed of one in pain, or dying, and prayed mightily for God’s intervention, but felt that God was far away? Have you ever, like David and Jesus, felt like praying, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” I have. Most of us have. We just don’t talk about it. It doesn’t seem seemly to talk about it.
There is something about me that wishes that Isaiah’s prayer were answered in my life, in each of our lives: that, in a great burst of power and glory, God would tear open the heavens and come down. There is a part of me that wants God to be always present, visible, clear as day, right now, standing here beside me, in full view as I type this reflection.
But it isn’t likely. It happens only rarely in the Bible; and it happens even less frequently today. In my own life God has spoken to me directly, clearly, only once. And, even then, I was not sure that I could believe what I clearly heard. And I spent an entire year trying to convince myself, and anyone else who would listen, that I was mistaken. Even when I came to believe that God had indeed spoken to me, it took me a full year trying to discern just what God meant by what He said to me. I have experienced no such direct contact since, nor had I ever xperienced anything like it before.
It seems to me that today, as in Bible times, God most often speaks to us through whispers, not shouts. It seems to me that God is most often found in the shadows, not in blazing flashes of light. And sometimes those whispers are very soft whispers; and those shadows are very dark shadows.
Sometimes, even when I hear Him in the whispers, or see him in the shadows of life, I am not sure that it is Him. Sometimes when I am the only one who thinks I hear a small word from Him, I doubt myself because no one else seems to have heard what I did.
You think I am wrong? Tell a group of people that God cured you of your cancer or your addiction or your constant pain, and they will say “That’s nice,” all the while thinking that it was coincidence, or good medicine, or just plain luck, and that you are more than a little bit unbalanced.
Tell someone that God actually spoke to you, or that you absolutely know what God wants you to do about some significant issue in your life, and you will really make a lot of people nervous, especially if what you know God wants from you will upset the status quo.
Christians are very good at invoking God, telling others that prayers work and that they should believe in miracles. Just don’t expect them to actually believe that your miracle was a gift from God. If you do insist that God did something miraculous for you, rather than be happy for you, all too often, they are just as likely to remember the last time they asked God for a miracle and nothing happened. And the joy you feel will have a hard time penetrating their unanswered question, “If that is really true, why doesn’t that happen to me?”
It very much seems to me that I don’t get a message from God because I am not actually listening for it. Sometimes God speaks, and, in Wil Willamon’s words “we need to be leaning toward Him to hear.” It is that “leaning in faith” that inclines us to hear the word of God. Sometimes, it seems to me, God is there, standing in the shadows, but we are looking for him in the light. The metaphors for God in the Bible have much to say about finding him in the light; even that God is light. But he is also in the shadows of our lives. We have to lean into the shadows, even though those shadows may frighten us, in order to focus on Him.
Many people saw the miracles of Jesus. Yet only a handful, if that, said that “He must be the Messiah.” Most said, “How do you suppose he did that?” “I saw David Copperfield do a better one than that!”
What kind of leaning toward God this Advent might strengthen our ability to hear him? And why do you suppose we need to do this leaning in faith toward God? Do you suppose that, as we wait and watch and listen for God, he is also waiting and watching and listening for us? Is it impossible to believe that he might want to hear from us? That he might be watching for a sign in our own faith which might allow us to hear him?
Or have you ever thought that God may not be the tame house pet, the ever available consultant, the helping, fixing, servile, trained, compliant, warm, fuzzy buddy that we make him out to be? Do you think that perhaps he could be a free, unrestrained, living spirit that isn’t overly impressed with the God we have fabricated in our minds that makes us so comfortable, that makes no demands on us?
Perhaps God is not a house pet that comes at our every beck and call. Rather, perhaps there is a space between us and God. You know: Creator vs. creature; savior vs. sinner; Lord vs. servant; King vs. subject: that sort of space. Like, He is God ! --- and we are not.
Wil Willamon notes that, if you look directly into the sun, you will be blinded. We must look at the sun indirectly, or through filters, or through a reflection of its brilliance. So it is with God. And, when God speaks to us in whispers rather than in an earthquake, when he stands in the shadows and not in the blazing light, perhaps it is not so hard to understand why we don’t often hear Him, why we assume His absence in our lives.
When it comes to knowing God’s presence among us, we are all too often like teenagers who, having listened to rock music for so long, with the volume so high, have damaged their hearing, and are no longer are able to hear whispers or subtlety in sounds.
We are like people who are constantly bombarded with sights and sounds: TV, radio, CDs, DVDs, MP3 players, a cacophony of noise that is so much a part of our lives that we become numb to it, and blinded to any subtlety or nuances in our perceptions. Sensory overload has deprived us of the capacity to discern. We are unable to tolerate, let alone hear, silence.
Perhaps that is why the Church insists on the waiting of Advent. If we are to see the fragile light that dawns among us in the Christ Child, we must sit a while in the quiet darkness. If we are to hear the songs the angels sing, and not just hear our own voices, we must first be still and listen, carefully, in silence.
Most people who saw the babe in the manger at Bethlehem 2000 years ago saw only another poor baby, another mouth to feed, at a time and in a place where there was little food for anyone. Yet, at such a place and at such a time there were a few who were, in faith, leaning toward the Lord, watching, listening. And what they saw and heard was altogether different than what most saw and heard. They saw the coming of Emmanuel, God with us.
Think of what those eyes of faith saw, and what those ears of faith heard! They saw the heavens open, and God come down! They saw Isaiah’s prayer answered. The others? Well, they saw and heard nothing extraordinary at all. The choice, as it always has been, is up to us. God is absent only in the lives of those who do not choose to lean in a bit in silence and listen.
I pray that whatever choice we have made or have yet to make, the coming weeks which are holy and special to me will be filled with every good blessing for you.
Monte
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