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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