advent 2020: the good news of disruption

To hear Brandi read this week’s essay, click here: https://youtu.be/HJkUCdj_OTY

This year the reality of our divides loom rather large. We are, most often, willing endorsers of us and them thinking. God cannot be shocked, and he certainly knows our love of this terrible kind of belonging, the kind that comforts us since we aren’t with those people. Here’s the thing though: God won’t abide being mocked.

You can’t tell the story of Advent without talking about extending our welcome, expanding our ideas about inclusion. You can’t tell the stories of God’s good Gospel news without talking about a moving Spirit, a boundary crossing prophet, a widening tent. The Gospel is good news to the poor, to the broken, to the ignored. It also issues an invitation, written in the language of repentance, to those addicted to power or greed or delighting in the exclusion of others. 

The last few years I keep forgetting how good this news really is. I look around, especially at some wealthy, segregated American brands of Christianity, and I feel outrage rise. If we don’t take particular care to stay familiar with the Scriptures and with those prophetic voices aligned with maligned folk, we begin to think God endorses the kinds of hateful platforms that a lot of Christians in our country seem to love. That’s my bad. I’m working on it.

I brought all of that mess with me into December this year. Thankfully, there was space to sit with the prophecies anticipating the Messiah, and then time to linger in the play by play narrative that culminates in this babe wrapped in a manger, bringing goodwill, as the Prince of Peace. Abiding in Jesus covered my pain with a healing salve. If we look closely, we can pick up the trail that has been there all along: that the good news of the Gospel is infinitely disruptive, inviting us to live life on our toes, leaning in as we realize our peace and contentment are rooted deeply in the ever-expanding love of God, and in little else.

Before I send you on your way with the final readings of Advent in 2020, look with me at the stars of our Christmas nativity, and hear the invitation to join the kingdom of heaven as it arrives on earth. Ours is a story of disruption.

The faith of Zechariah and Elizabeth had taught them to still believe in a good God despite their lifelong grief. The voice of God exposed those manipulative coping mechanisms for what they were, and disrupted their determined contentment with the miraculous fulfillment God brings. God disrupts our coping mechanisms, and invites us into infinite hope. With God, impossible things are possible.

Take a look at Joseph or Mary, and notice that God disrupts our reputations. Surrendering to this good news might mean people talk trash, or that we make our homes in places others dare not linger. The Advent story is an invitation to trust God with our families, our hopes, our dreams of significance, thereby disrupting our own logical map for increased success through strategic planning.

The story of the wise men reminds us that our God rejects alliances with evil power, and does not compromise to save face when other bodies are on the line. They show us that power is often most interested in more power, delivered at the cost of others. This good news disrupts the “way we do business”, and instead invites us to follow the prophets instead of political promise.

The story of the shepherds is pure, precious disruption. You who wander the margins for a living, you get a special invite to the throne room of God almighty. You who protect the innocent, your presence brings dignity to this embarrassing stable. You shepherds who mostly follow the same path, you are going to learn to disrupt that path and follow curiosity instead. (“‘Let’s go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, that God made known to us.’ And they went with haste…”).

And finally, this week, spend some time looking at Jesus. At the remarkable story of a God who disrupts our pattern of talking a good game, but leaving others to fend for themselves. God disrupted time and space. He willingly surrendered unlimited power in order to make Godself accessible to others who had no hope. I pray this Christ child disrupts your patterns of comfort, of coping mechanisms, of logical steps forward, of expected routines. I pray you get blown away with a gift you’ve taught yourself to no longer want. I pray you get the chance to reject any alliance with a powerful person who will likely hurt others. I pray you get invited into less fanfare, and into deeper roots. I pray you follow curiosity into overlooked spaces, where Jesus is honored, and peace abides.

Merry Christmas. Cheers to a New Year.

Fourth Week Readings

Gather around the Advent Wreath on Sunday 12/20

Light the purple candle of Peace or Purity. 

The baby who becomes a man brings his incredibly present Spirit to us; the Prince of Peace abides in us still.

Hymn of Peace (Listen to this old hymn, cherished in churches for years)

“O holy night! The stars are brightly shining, it is the night of the dear Savior’s birth.  Long lay the world, in sin and error pining, til He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.  A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.  Fall on your knees!  Oh, hear the angel voices! O night divine, the night when Christ was born.  O night, O holy night, O night divine!

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming, with glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.  O’er the world a star is sweetly gleaming, now come the wise men from out of Orient land.  The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger; in all our trials born to be our friends.  He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger.  Behold your King!  Before him lowly bend.

Truly He taught us to love one another, His law is love and His gospel is peace.  Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease.  Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, with all our hearts we praise His holy name.  His power and glory ever more proclaim!”

Prayer for the Final Week of Advent:

“Lord our God, you wanted to live not only in heaven, but also with us, here on earth; not only to be high and great, but also to be small and lowly, as we are; not only to rule, but also to serve us; not only to be God in eternity, but also to be born as a person, to live, and to die.  In your dear Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, you have given us none other than yourself, that we may wholly belong to you.  This affects all of us, and none of us has deserved this.  What remains for us to do but to wonder, to rejoice, to be thankful, and to hold fast to what you have done for us?”            -Karl Barth

Dec 21 Psalm 46:1-11

Dec 22 Isaiah 11:1-12

Dec 23 John 14:15-20; Psalm 78:4-8

Dec 24 Luke 2:19-40

Readings for the Final Week:

“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”                                                                                     -Revelation 2:20

“The birth, death and resurrection of Jesus means that one day everything sad will come untrue.”                                                                        -JRR Tolkien 

“Hope does not rely on human achievement or triumphalism, but instead on God’s grace…. However, the hope for restoration comes not from a distant God, but from Immanuel, ‘God is with us.’”                                               -Soong-Chan Rah

“[In Advent waiting,] a longing emerges within us, which will not be silenced, a longing that all should be fulfilled amidst all the failures and against all the evidence, yet we protest its fulfillment all the stronger.  This is a waiting within us for nothing less than that this world will be redeemed through and through—not by this or that political means, but by God.  When God himself comes to, then Advent truly becomes real.”                                                                                                -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“The perception of the human body shapes the body of the city, then the way the church understands itself as the embodiment of Christ should transform our interaction with the body of the city.  Our understanding of the incarnation, therefore, takes on an added measure of importance.  In the incarnation, here is the full expression of God’s active love for humanity and the act of making his dwelling among us.  The incarnation, therefore, gives us the model of an active body of Christ confronting the passive body of the city…The church as the body of Christ embodies Christ in the world…The church is called to embody Christ in the city.”                                                                                                                                   -Soong-Chan Rah

“Our identity rests in God’s relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ.”                                                                                                    -Brennan Manning

Christmas Day, Dec 25

Light the white candle of Christ. 

God with us, Immanuel has come.

Hymn of Birth (Listen to or sing this hymn taken from the Gospels)

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And Heaven and nature sing,

And Heaven and Nature sing,

And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.”

Christmas Scriptures

Luke 2:1-20; Isaiah 9:6-7