From the Minister of Faith Formation
Dear Beloved of God,
Advent – the journey to Bethlehem begins anew and so does the liturgical calendar of the church year. Advent is a season of expectant waiting, confident hope, anticipatory joy and a reminder of the promises of peace and love ushered in with the birth of the Christ Child over 2000 years ago. It is a season rich with rituals, traditions, special music, liturgical and seasonal decorations, visits with family and friends, gifting those we know and love as well as some we may never meet, colder temperatures and perhaps even some snow. Here at Edwards there will be several special services and offerings and I hope you will consider inviting a friend or neighbor to experience some or all of them with you.
As I began discerning the next chapter of my life and the threshold I would be crossing there were many “what if” questions as I sat with quite a bit of not knowing. Ed Catmull (Pixar) writes that “there is a sweet spot between the known and the unknown where originality happens; the key is to be able to linger there without panicking.”
Many of you – children, youth, young adults, and adults alike- have heard me begin a thought process while in conversation in church school, youth group, on a Zoom, in an email or the Spire letter with “I wonder…” To wonder is a spiritual practice that invites us into an open space and conversation with the Divine and one another to participate in following the way of Jesus, of living out the promises made at Baptism, of meaning making without judgement, along our life long journeys of faith as individuals and a congregation. To wonder invites our beginners mind to entertain many possibilities and to do so lingering without panicking. As you as a congregation moves through this liminal time, I pray that you will be faithfully open to wonder, experimentation, evaluation, reinvention, and more evaluation even as the Church universal continues to evolve.
I am reminded and offer for your wondering, theologian Marjorie Suchoki’s metaphor of a kaleidoscope in describing how God moves through all that life presents us with. She suggests that the creative work of the Divine and of Creation is reflective in the multiple pieces and possibilities held in the image seen it this toy. With just a slight turn, a new image can be observed. With just a small decision the whole world can shift. Our steadfast and loving God is present and moving with us in all the shifts, the nuances, the unknowing’s, the affirmations, life and church transitions just as God always has and always will be. Many times in recent months I have picked up the kaleidoscope in my office and in the turning, smiled.
Dear Beloved of God, in this my last Spire letter after twelve years and four months I offer this blessing from Jan Richardson. As I have been so deeply blessed to have served you and God, please know that is with a grateful heart that I will carry with me the love and joy we have shared, the grace we have granted one another, the persistent hope we have for living into and helping to make God’s dream for all people and creation possible.
In her blessing titled In The Leaving, Jan Richardson writes:
In the leaving,
in the letting go,
let there be this
to hold onto
at the last:
the enduring of love,
the persisting of hope,
the remembering of joy,
the offering of gratitude,
the receiving of grace,
the blessing of peace.
Blessings on your journey to Bethlehem and all that you will give birth to,
Deb
- Jan Richardson from © Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. janrichardson.com.
From the Senior Minister
Dear Edwards Church Community,
The fundamental fact of Christmas, the event we wait and prepare for, is Emmanuel, God with us. God cares for and about us so much, God has joined us in being human. Before the birth of Jesus, God already observed what humans experienced in life, but had not yet experienced it the same way we do – in the flesh. God was so moved by what God saw us going through that God decided to enter fully into human life as a distinct human being, with a unique identity and purpose. Only in this embodied way could God demonstrate the depth and breadth of God’s love for us.
Just imagine: the creative force that moved across the formless void and gave rise to all we see today. Imagine that creative force being fully present in one person with awareness of all the actions, motives, thoughts, and feelings of other creatures, human or non-human. Imagine that perception and knowledge not limited by time or space, and the capacity to feel in one body the full potential of the human race to create and give for the sake of all that is good.
Just imagine that unique person also experiencing the full range of human frailty, of learning the lure and the cost of giving in to temptation. Jesus the man, 30 years after his birth, 30 years into experiencing the variety of blessings and curses of being human, of growing up in a religious tradition and learning at each stage of his life how to listen and respond to the leading of the Spirit, the ruah or breath that moved across the waters at the moment of creation and tame the chaos. Imagine experiencing the full range of possibilities and then being led him into the wilderness to face evil incarnate.
Imagine being born so that you might grow into your maturity as one so gifted, just so that you could give yourself completely to a cause as uncertain as human beings responding fully to a divine invitation, a calling to live into all the good you had in you, a calling to make a way for all the good in others too. Imagine doing all that while knowing in your bones that it would cost you unavoidable suffering, which would make way for an abundant new life.
Every Advent and Christmas we return to the beginning, to the manger and the moment when God comes into our lives as a newborn, completely vulnerable and willingly dependent on other ordinary humans to see what God is doing as Jesus. In a time when the world is so frightening, we can be tempted to despair. It can feel like too much to keep putting our time and energy into hope, much less joy, peace, or love. Given the state of the world, it can feel like too much to believe God really cares.
And then a Christmas pageant, a candlelight service, or an old, familiar hymn will rekindle hope, joy, peace, and love and the willingness to rejoin the struggle to share them with every living being. In 1849, the Massachusetts pastor Edmund H. Sears wrote in “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”:
And you, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way, with painful steps and slow,
Look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing;
O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.
The angels, the messengers of God, come on Christmas Eve and throughout the season – throughout the year really, though sometimes in disguise as fellow humans – not just to join us in singing praise, but as reminders that even though Jesus may no longer be available in the flesh, the same Spirit that inspired him is now available to us, sustaining and prompting us along the way he came to show and call us to follow.
In “Joy to the World” we sing, “Let every heart prepare him room … and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing!” This Christmas, may that Spirit, the spirit of Christmas, the ruah that moved across the water, that descended on Jesus at his baptism, led him into the wilderness, and moved him through life and death, and then back into new life with him, bring you comfort and joy.
And may your Advent preparations unfold in new life too.
In faith, with hope, for love,
Michael
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