Thursday, December 21, 2017

Fourth Candle: Love Returned



A Reflection for IV Advent                                       All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, N.C. December 24, 2017                                                            Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

2nd Samuel 7: 1-11, 16             Romans 16: 25-27                   Luke 1: 26-38

Fourth Candle: Love Returned
Today we light the last of the four candles of the Advent Wreath which is a symbol of love; love is the cornerstone of a life of the other three lights of the candles - faith, hope and peace.

In the Hebrew Testament lesson for today from the Book of 2nd Samuel, David decides that he will be the one to build a house to contain the glory of God, the Shekinah, the very presence of God. The Hebrew people had been nourished by the idea that God entered into our time and place and celebrated Holy Space. You remember from the Book of Genesis the stories of Jacob having the dream of the ladder, and he erected a stone pillar of memory and anointed it with oil to commemorate that the place of the dream was an entrance into heaven. Later Jacob will build an altar at Shiloh as a place of memory of being on Holy Ground with God in loving struggle. Shiloh became a place of sanctuary where pilgrims and others came to worship or to be safe because it was known that it was a place of Holy Ground.  Jacob out of love creates a home for the Glory of God.

In Exodus, when Moses meets God in several places on the journey to freedom, the Shekinah, the Glory of God, would light up his face.  Since they were on a journey, the people took outward and visible signs of God’s presence and placed them in a box, which they called the Ark of the Covenant, or a Tabernacle, and carried it with them. This Tabernacle they would carry into battle with them as an outward and visible sign that God was with them. When they finally arrive in the Promised Land, they placed it in Shiloh where they renewed it as a place of sanctuary, as a house for the Shekinah, the Glory of God.

It was in that sanctuary in a story in 1st Samuel  when Eli, a Priest, whose sons were weak men and scoundrels, takes a young boy into his care to follow him as the one who cares for the house of God. One night Samuel was sleeping near the Tabernacle and the voice of God called to him, and Samuel, out of the purity of his heart, knelt down and said, ”Here am I, speak for your servant listens”. Out of love he empties himself out to grow into becoming a caretaker of the Presence of God.

However, the story goes, before he is ready to take on the responsibility, Eli’s sons - remember they are weak men and scoundrels - take the Ark to the troops who, in their arrogance, go into battle for their own purposes against the Philistines. The battle is a disaster and God lets the Tabernacle be captured. The Philistines place the Ark in the temple of their God Dagon, in front of Dagon’s idol. They set it up in order to use the Glory of God for their own agendas. The Glory of God was so great that it toppled the idol several times and smashed it into pieces. The Priests hustle the idol out of the Temple, but each time the priests of Dagon move the Ark of the Tabernacle to another town or city, that particular city would have a plague. The Priests finally decided to give it back, along with a guilt offering to placate the children of Israel, and it is returned to Shiloh.

David out of his own arrogance decides that the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, should go into the liberated city of Jerusalem, which was called then called the “City of David” so that he could keep track of it and build a Temple to house the Glory of God.  Nathan the prophet sees through this power grab and confronts David to stop him. Later the Temple will be built by David’s son, Solomon. But the arrogance continued until the Temple was destroyed, and the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, was lost to history. Even when they rebuilt the Temple after the exile and under Roman occupation, there was only an empty room to remember the place where the Ark once was. Even then the High Priest only went into the empty room once a year because it was Holy Ground, and he would have a rope tied around him so that if God was displeased, the dead body of the offending Priest could be dragged out until the new High Priest was elected. The people went to the Temple to do religious activities but for many, this was not the real home for the Glory of God, and they looked for a Messiah as an outward and visible sign of the Glory of God, a living house to give the Shekinah of God a home.

The Gospel story for today is the Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel appears to Mary to ask if she will be a house for the Glory of God. The house needs to be a home of love rather than an edifice of pride. Mary empties herself out of all her ego and the usual adolescent arrogance which, in the manner of most teenagers (and adults) I know, usually asks, “What’s in it for me?”, and presents herself by echoing the words and love of Jacob, Moses, Samuel, and Solomon saying “Here am I, let it be to me according to your will.”

Mary and Joseph will empty themselves out to provide a home of love for Jesus their son. Jesus will empty himself out so that his love will give a home to all those who follow him in love.
This is what love is about, the process of emptying oneself out in love so that there is room for the Other to find a home. For all of us it is a daily process, emptying ourselves out of our own agendas and making room for the people with whom we share our families, our churches, our communities, our country, our planet, our universe, our God. The question for meditation today was; “When was the last time you were fully present in love?”


When we get married, we have to move from our own self-centeredness and live as if the space between us is Holy Ground, the Glory of God, the Christ who unites us, and not just our approval of the other person.  When we become parents we live into the awareness that children are gifts to us, for us to teach by example how to love and pour themselves out. When we become Christians, we do not just subscribe to a series of dogma statements, but we take on the nature of Christ to see all of our neighbors, even our enemies, as brothers and sisters of God, and to treat the space between us as Holy Ground. When we dare to pray, we do not just prattle on and give God a series of jobs to do and marching orders to perform, but we empty ourselves out of our own agendas and say, “Here am I, speak for your servant listens. Let it be to me according to your will.”  Today ask for strength so we may be fully present and follow our Mother Mary and make a home for God in our lives.

Fourth Candle: Love Returned
“Here am I” is the sound of love returned,
a quiet statement given to be quiet heard,
maybe said not out loud or even by word,
it could be in the absolute silence served
when the flowery words just gilds the lily
and gets in the way of sharing our hearts
with others when we play important parts
in the dance of life, not afraid of being silly.
Overcoming the fear of being foolish when
we show up and wonder what good it does
to be fully there, again vulnerable because
we have been there before. But that’s then
and now is now. We’ll risk a rejection pain
as pilgrims treading Holy Space once again.

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