Doing my best to find my way.
Is it wasting time
I wonder
If I just stand and look out the window
At the snow
Down the street
At nothing.
Is it wasting time
If I just stand and look out the window
At everything there
But not seeing any of it
Lost for a moment
In the wilderness of my own soul
Looking
Searching
Longing
For I am not quite sure what
But for what I sense is there
Somewhere
Just beyond what I can see.
In a hundred different ways, we are getting ready for Christmas.
The Mistletoe Mart. The Instrumental Ensemble.
Advent candles lit.. Carols sung.
At home, boxes are pulled out of the attic or closet.
Decorations are put in their assigned places.
Stockings are hung. The tree is trimmed.
Christmas is coming.
But…
Here is what is different for you and for me.
This morning, instead of being at the store or on the sidelines of a sports field or in PJs at the kitchen table with your newspaper or tablet and a cup of coffee, you are here.
In church.
During Advent.
With each other.
And because of where you are and because of who we are and because the world in which we live seems so far from the promises of Christmas and the world which God intends that process of getting ready takes on a different and deeper and more nuanced meaning. Hanging in the air alongside everything else we do to get ready for Christmas – the decorations and the gifts and the holiday cheer – there is the question asked of Herod by the Magi.
“Where is he? Where can we find him?”
And, because I believe the Bible is not just about then, but also about now.
And, not just about them, but also about you and me.
That age old question asked by the Magi of Herod is now our question. Meant for today and for the complicated and challenging times in which we live of refugees fleeing and racial slurs spray painted on churches and students harassed because they are Hispanic. Or, Asian. Or, Indian. Or Muslim. In the clutter and confusion and uncertainty of the moment, as we get ready for Christmas, where and how do you look for Jesus?
So, back to the Bible for a moment and the story of the Magi.
Behind the part of the story we read and know…
Wise men with gifts. Following a star. Searching for a new born king.
Is that untold story of the never ending journey.
From wherever it was where they started from to God only knows where?
They didn’t. They just kept going.
And, how many times, I wonder, as they made their way from place to place had they asked their question before they finally found their way to Herod?
Maybe something of that is the same for us.
Maybe there is only the searching from wherever we’ve been to wherever we are and then taking that next step to God only knows where relentlessly asking the question over and over and over again as we do our best to find our way. As I thought about the question, I found myself remembering the quote by Rainer Maria Rilke. “Live the questions now. Then perhaps, someday in the far future…you will live your way into the answer.” Maybe something of what I am suggesting this morning about finding our way to that something more about Christmas is something like that.
Ask the question.
Live the question.
Even if there doesn’t seem to be an answer in the moment you ask it.
Where is he?
Where might I find Jesus?
Here is what I know…at least for myself.
There is no magic formula or step by step guide.
There is no one way. No one place.
Only a desire to ask the question and to do my best to keep my eyes open that I might catch a glimpse of that glimmer of light and hope in the midst of the darkness and so turn towards it. Only the hope that in the midst of the uncertainty and chaos I might see some spark of courage and compassion and then do my best to nurture and encourage it. Only that I might hold onto Jesus’ radical insistence that God’s Kingdom come is not meant for some distant day, but for here and now and that God’s dream for tomorrow is found in the seeds we plant today.
So, what about this? Are you willing to try?
When you are standing in the line at the grocery store, ask the question.
Where is Jesus?
When you walk into work tomorrow, ask the question.
Where is Jesus?
When you swallow hard at the headlines in the news or find tears in your eyes, ask the question. Where is Jesus?
When you add your prayer for Christmas to the hallway windows, ask the question.
Where is Jesus?
When you take a Christmas Gift Star or stop by the Dove Tree, ask the question.
Where is Jesus?
As you wrap the gifts you will give to those you love the most, ask the question.
Where is Jesus?
As you meet the stranger. Encounter the other, ask the question.
Where is Jesus?
If we do…
If you do…
Maybe we will find our way.
On of the blogs I subscribe to is OnFaith.
OnFaith was founded almost 10 years ago by Sally Quinn who worked for the Washington Post. Her most recent post which showed up in my inbox this afternoon rang true for me on many levels, but one sentence jumped out. “Agnostics say they don’t know. And, I believe we are all agnostics – even the Pope.”
I am an agnostic.
I don’t know.
And, I am a Christian.
Using the teaching and witness of Jesus to do my best to find my way.
But it is the not knowing which I find intriguing and refreshing and which I think is important because however you describe that which we know and name as God, our words and our understanding fall short of what is. It is certainty which stops us in our tracks. Stops our growth and our dreaming and our reaching and our longing.
I don’t ever want to get to that point.
Tomorrow morning at Bedford Presbyterian Church we will celebrate Confirmation and the lives and witness of five young adults who have been in a conversation with me this past year about how we imagine and think and talk about God and what we know about the life and witness of Jesus and what it means to carry something of all that into the world in which we live.
I will do my best…
We will do our best…
To make it a meaningful moment for them.
One that will somehow find its way into the fabric of who they are and how they live.
Early in John’s Gospel there is this wonderful story.
Philip has already met Jesus and is so captivated by who he is and what he is teaching that he goes home to tell his friends. As his friends question him about this new teacher, instead of trying to argue with them or to convince them, Philip simply says, “Come and see.”
That is the best he could do.
And, it is the best I can do.
So, here is what I hope.
I hope that somewhere along the way…
Somewhere in all the conversations and questions of this past year, instead of trying to convince them or to make sure they understand all the “correct” doctrine and dogma around this thing we call Christianity, they have heard me say, “Come and see.”
Try it out.
Enter into the conversation with me.
Join me in trying out something of this in your own life.
Ask the hard questions that make room for new ideas and new insights.
Come and see if any of what we say about God makes sense.
Come and see what it might mean today to “treat others as you would like to be treated.”
I have no expectations that 10 years from now (or maybe even a year or a couple of months from now) they will remember the types of things we talked about for an hour or so on Sunday evenings this past year. And, that is okay. But what I hope they do remember is somewhere along the way I extended an invitation to them.
Some notes I keep the old fashioned way.
File folder.
Scraps of papers.
Articles torn from newspapers (remember those!).
Scribbled notes copied and recopied as file folders wear out.
One of those scribbled notes on a file folder which is often on my desk rather than in my desk is a line from Genesis 3. God walking through the Garden of Eden looking for Adam and Eve who are now hiding from God. “Where are you?” God calls out as God walks through the Garden. You would think that from the way we usually talk and think about God that God would already know without having to ask.
But, anyway.
What a reversal from the way that question usually gets asked.
In thinking about God, aren’t we the ones usually in charge of the questions?
Challenging God by asking, “Where are you?”
Where were you when the storm hit?
Where were you when the illness struck?
Where are you when I don’t get what I want or what I think I need?
But, maybe we have it all wrong.
An ancient story would say that we do.
Maybe our asking the question this way is just one more way we hide from God.
What if God is the one to whom the question belongs.
Where are you?
Implying God is present and we are the ones who are absent or hiding or not paying attention.
If that is true, then what about this.
Walking into work tomorrow what if you imagined God calling out, “Where are you?”
Or, if not work, what about walking into school?
Or, standing in line at the grocery store?
Or, scrolling through the headlines in the news?
Where are you?
If you are not into using or thinking about the word God, insert whatever frame of reference is meaningful for you – compassion, kindness, your best self. Whatever word(s) you chose to use, the question remains and maybe it THE question we should consider each day.
One of my favorite quotes is this:
“If they get you asking the wrong questions they don’t have to worry about the answer.”
As a result of a book that I am reading – Abraham Joshua Heschel: Essential Writings – I realize I probably have been asking the wrong question and, therefore, not finding what I have been looking for. In an effort to pay attention to what I think is important or to move beyond what appears on the surface I have been asking:
“Where is God in this particular circumstance or situation.”
I ask my question with the best intentions in an effort to remind myself that even the most ordinary moments have the possibility of being tinged with the Holy.
But, maybe I have been asking the wrong question.
I think what I need to begin to ask is this:
“God is present. What do I need to do to be more aware of, more open to God in this moment that I have.”
The difference between the two questions may sound like semantics, but here is what I think is the difference. When I ask “Where is God?” the assumption is that God is hiding. Playing a type of holy hide and seek with me and my job is to find God. But, if I ask “What do I need to do to be more aware of God in this moment?” it is an acknowledgement that God is everywhere and always present and that my responsibility is openness and awareness and acknowledgement.
I wonder…
I think Iwill try asking what I think is the right question and see what I discover.
