Here is the obvious - it’s been quite a year. As I sit to write this devotion I’m both tired and energized. I feel certain there are many who agree. We recognize the sorrow and the joy evident in our meeting next Sunday.
When we read the lessons chosen for this Sunday they are indeed messages of hope, of unity, of repentance, of all things necessary for kingdom living. Mostly they are good words, words of comfort and messages of promise. The prophet Isaiah wrote almost 3,000 years ago that the people who walked in darkness; on them a great light shines [this is our light beloved, the very same light and the very same intention]. The psalmist reminds us that the Lord is our light and salvation! And that means we indeed have nothing to fear. Jesus claims, in the Gospel of Matthew, that the kingdom, the reign of God is at hand! He tempers his announcement with the call for … repentance.
There is a relationship between our awareness of life lived and being able to fully realize the reign of God come near. This is not as quid pro quo but in the experience that is the heart of repentance, as the very same heart that experiences God’s kingdom come close.
It is in repentance that we are led to know and love God more deeply, to know and love our neighbors, to know and love ourselves. The humanness of humanity means we need repentance, not the kind that sounds like punishment or condemnation - please believe that repentance is God’s gift to us, to help us recognize our shortcomings and to help move us toward a new way of being.
We have for the last year tried to be better listeners, attempted to be more welcoming, are trying to love our neighbors more openly. At times these behaviors, these conversations have met with some resistance. Resistance because we have identified the need to be different, signaled the need for change. Even when we might not feel the need to be any different, or when we might like things just the way they have always been.
Can I tell you a story about me? I do not like any one to point a finger at me, to identify a failure, to speak on a shortcoming [perceived or actual] about who or how I am. I rarely willingly want anyone, even in the spirit of love, to give me counsel about a behavior or mannerism. Not as parent or partner or colleague or as leader of this spiritual community. I want to be perfect. ALWAYS. And when feedback suggests otherwise I can be crushed, I can be defensive, I can withdraw. Letting me know:
Please don’t hold that mirror up so close, my reflection is not the one I want to see.
HOWEVER, this what Jesus does to make the kingdom of God a reality, the reflection in the mirror is the love of God for God’s people, for you and me. This is the gentlest love and often the harshest reality. I‘m learning, like all of us, to listen and to trust in the strength of God’s love. So of course, despite my most protective instincts to have things remain as they are -- I also want to grow as wife, mother, priest, friend and mostly as lover of Jesus.
The world we occupy is full to the brim with loudness, and I think the message of Christ gets overrun by the volume. The world has standards and expectations that I, that each of us are trying to live into, these are not usually the same standards of the kingdom of God. I have to return to Isaiah, return to the psalmist, to the Epistle and find comfort in my shortcomings, remembering the revealing of the kingdom of God is a place of love and affection, not condemnation.
I really do believe this has everything to do with the annual meeting of the parish on Sunday. Where God willing, we present and prayerfully approve a budget for 2020, elect a slate of 4 vestry members to serve for 3 years terms, elect 5 diocesan convention delegates and talk a good bit about the vision and future of our parish, as we rejoice in this tiny bit of God’s kingdom come near.
As we prepare it is a chance to think and pray – seriously pray about the kind of place we are, and how we are being the kingdom of God.
I hope you will join us.
G
ive us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Rev. Alison +
