Reflection for 3rd Sunday of Advent (poem expanded)

A Reflection for IV Advent                                    St. George Episcopal Church Engelhard, N.C. December 23, 2018                                                Thomas E Wilson, Supply Celebrant

My Love Is My Gift For You

On this last Sunday of Advent, we light the last of the four candles in the Advent Wreath. We began with the first candle of Hope to lighten the darkness at the end of the year. We moved from Hope to the second candle of Peace. With Hope and Peace we were able to see the light from the candle of Joy. When Hope, Peace and Joy lighten our path we are able to shine forth Love; Love, the last candle. It is then, with Hope, Peace, Joy and Love that we are able receive the Light of Christ in the Christ Candle.

Lets clear up some language; Love is not a feeling. Feelings come and go and are often connected to digestion. Many feelings are investments of emotional energy on a person, place, thing or idea, what Freud would call a “Cathexis” upon an object. The word Cathexis comes from the Greek work “I occupy”, where one transfers one's own energy, either positive or negative, onto the object. Pat and I do dream work and we see dreams as a collection of symbols. We consider dreams Soul Work, where the Spirit, positive or negative, is speaking. When we work in a group we ask group members to share their dreams and then we focus in on the object with the greatest energy, like a door, a light, a lock, a classroom, a food, a movie star, politician, a body part or whatever. Think of a dream that you might have had and what energy seems to be invested in a particular object which is itself a symbol of something deeper.

This idea goes into everyday life as well. For instance I might say I love my mother's homemade meatloaf. The emotional energy is about my mother serving it as the family gathered around the dinner table. It was a time of quiet, polite space with each other, as we would share about our days. My older brother and I would NOT kick each other under the table or make fun of our younger brother. My mother was not an adventurous cook but often in the middle of the week we would have been involved in setting up the meat grinder after coming home from school and turning the crank and seeing her mix up the ground meat, cook it in the oven and we would smell it cooking, have that dinner that night and we might have a meat loaf sandwich for lunch the next day. My emotional energy went beyond the flavor and into what it was, a symbol of being in a family where there is hope, peace, joy and love.

Feelings of love and fear start within ourselves from the constant barrage of our ego to meet our selfish wants and to avoid our subconscious fears buried in memory. The way out is to listen to a new reality based on love not fear. Frederick Buechner wrote: “We are so used to hearing what we want to hear and remaining deaf to what it would be well for us to hear . . . that it is hard to break the habit.”

When I first met the woman who would become my wife; I disliked her intensely when I first saw her as she was hanging around with a bunch of unsmiling women, wrapped with big scarves, and smoking little cigarettes. My projections on her were that she was a small angry woman, surrounding herself with other bitter women complaining about how all men were scum. One conversation with her and I knew she considered me in that category of scum. My energy was not about who she really was but about the symbol that she represented to me and the treat to my ego. It would be years before I could see her as apart from the object in which I was investing negative energy.

It works the other way as well; in my life before, I had invested positive energy in girls who were symbols of hoped for adoration of me. Therefore, my relationships were mainly all about me and what I wanted or feared. But it was only after I was able to grow up and know that I was loved before the beginning of the universe and see how I was in the habit of using people as objects that I was able to learn how to love others outside of my projections.

Projections are like judging the present by the wrapping and never getting around to the present itself. While we are at it, unwrapping or wrapping a present around Christmas or birthday is not about getting or giving loot, but an outward symbol about giving and receiving love. But if it is given or received as an obligation, it is literally one more damn thing and God knows we have enough things.

Love is not a feeling but a free decision to act, to commit, to give oneself, then saying it and then doing it. Love begins in creation as God, who is Love, speaks the word of Love, and through that Love the universe is created, which the Apostle John in the 1^st chapter of his Gospel sees as the Christ, the Word made flesh, Jesus. Jesus is the living image of God, as we are, made from the dust of the universe's explosion into being. Love is the decision that Mary makes to give birth to God's love. Love is the decision that Joseph has to take what could be shame upon himself and give himself to Mary and the child. Love is the decision that Jesus takes to give himself to God's healing of, and reconciling ministry with God's children. Love is the decision that we make in giving ourselves to God and neighbor. Love is the decision, without the illusions of self benefit, to unselfishly give ourselves.

Love comes when one has hope, when one has peace within oneself and peace with one's world, when one has a deeper joy not dependent on circumstances; then love can a gift to oneself and to others. Love is the decision to give it. Love is a gift.

I wrote a poem for this week and I thought I would just read it instead of doing a prose reflection, but I decided to unpack what I was saying behind the poem. I made copies of the poem for you to take home with you. Let me read it and let me ask you to join me and say out loud the refrain at the end of every quatrain stanza, so you can hear yourself say out loud “My love is my gift for you.” When you say that refrain, think of to whom you need to say it and make a decision to say it and to do it. This next week, as you read the poem at home, see who else comes to mind, could even be a chance for you to hear God saying it to you. Love is a decision to give yourself.

My Love Is My Gift For You

Slowly, God turning dream to song

singing Word, creates Galactic stew,

image-ing us from stardust of earth,

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

Fearfully, Mary turns to see the angel

kneeling, hailing “Girl dressed in blue,

we know not why, but you are favored.

to hear “'My love is my gift for you.' ”

Joseph wakes in God's ongoing dream,

informing of task; a child to raise true

of heart, mind and soul as precious son

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

The Innkeeper's wife sees the couple

with no place to stay and time is due,

she offers finest stable straw, and then

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

The shepherds sense the angels invite

them come to Bethlehem and to view

a child to be their hope, peace and joy

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

Mary holds all these things in her heart

seeing visions of both pure joy and rue,

raising their child to live and to die and

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

From the East the Magi come placing

gold, frankincense and myrrh in queue,

leaving quietly as wisdom allows them

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

We walk away from wrapping presents,

our fingers sticky with glitter and glue

hoping we'd have grace either to say or

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

The outward packages are never enough

to proclaim what's in our souls we knew;

reason we are together is we were lucky

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

We are older, the children have grown and

under the tree shows presents as very few,

yet turning to each other, we pray or kiss

to hear, “My love is my gift for you.”

This new year is a time for us to promise

that each day we'll choose to begin anew

forgiving the hurts, treasuring the joy and

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

At the service, an offering plate comes

as way giving to God and neighbor too;

but best gift is living in way for God

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

The day'll come when my table place

will be empty as I bid the world adieu

and on the other shore, again a chance

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

Poem: Christmas Gift 2018

Christmas Gift Poem 2018                           Thomas E. Wilson

Advent Lessons and Carols. 23 December    St. George's Episcopal, Engelhard, NC

Slowly, God turning dream to song

singing Word, creates Galactic stew,

image-ing us from stardust of earth,

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

Fearfully, Mary turns to see the angel

kneeling, hailing “Girl dressed in blue,

we know not why, but you are favored.

to hear “'My love is my gift for you.' ”

Joseph wakes in God's ongoing dream,

informing of task; a child to raise true

of heart, mind and soul as precious son

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

The Innkeeper's wife sees the couple

with no place to stay and time is due,

she offers finest stable straw, and then

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

The shepherds sense the angels invite

them come to Bethlehem and to view

a child to be their hope, peace and joy

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

Mary holds all these things in her heart

seeing visions of both pure joy and rue,

raising their child to live and to die and

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

From the East the Magi come placing

gold, frankincense and myrrh in queue,

leaving quietly as wisdom allows them

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

We walk away from wrapping presents,

our fingers sticky with glitter and glue

hoping we'd have grace either to say or

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

The outward packages are never enough

to proclaim what's in our souls we knew;

reason we are together is we were lucky

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

We are older, the children have grown and

under the tree shows presents as very few,

yet turning to each other, we pray or kiss

to hear, “My love is my gift for you.”

This new year is a time for us to promise

that each day we'll choose to begin anew

forgiving the hurts, treasuring the joy and

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

At the service, an offering plate comes

as way giving to God and neighbor too;

but best gift is living in way for God

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

The day'll come when my table place

will be empty as I bid the world adieu

and on the other shore, again a chance

to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

"Brood of Vipers" Relection and Poem for 3rd Sunday of Advent

A Reflection and Poem for III Advent                 Trinity Episcopal Church, Chocowinity, NC 

 December 16, 2018  Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant and Preacher

Zephaniah 3:14-20 Philippians 4:4-7 Luke 3:7-18 Canticle 9

Brood of Vipers

Have you ever though how you might react if someone called you a part of a “brood of vipers”as John the Baptizer starts off his rant in the Gospel lesson for today. Lets just chalk if up to his having a bad day. But, maybe there is something to it.

One definition of brood is offspring, children, but I do not consider my parents to be vipers. There were four of us children who were raised well by my parents. If they had lived both of them would have turned 100 this year. There is not a day that goes by that I don't think of them and thank them and thank God for them. Yes, they made a mess of mistakes, but they wanted the best for us. They loved us and taught us much about being a parent. Today is the 16^th of December, my older brother Paul's birthday, and this would have been his 73 birthday. Paul died more than a couple of decades ago and he made a lot of mistakes. but he and his children he loved and his grandchildren he never knew are not vipers.

Another definition of “brood” is sharing an incubation, like eggs in a nest and I think this is where John was heading. Vipers, snakes leave you alone unless you startle them or if you get in their way. The people the Baptizer was addressing were living in a community in turmoil which incubated the people living within, incubated to be like snakes, vipers and strike out at anyone of whom they had fear. The country they lived in was occupied by the Roman Empire who ruled by fear. There was deep division in the country with those who wanted to accept the present political regime and those who hated every moment living under tyranny. There were brutal arrogant soldiers of the occupiers and their corrupt tax collectors exploiting the people. There were those who were getting rich off the policies, grabbing every advantage and taking anything not nailed down and others being ground into deeper poverty. It was a place of deep hate, suspicion and fear. There was distrust of people of other heritage like Samaritans, Egyptians and Romans, or immigrants competing for jobs and resources, or who were different like Lepers, or part of an opposing political or cultic sect like Sadducees, Pharisees, Herodians, or Zealots. Over to the east there was a constant threat of the Parthian Empire that was ready to swoop in if the Roman Empire showed any weakness.

John is baptizing people who want to live a new life which doesn't have to be viper-like. John is preparing a way for Jesus who will gather a community around him that will no longer live in fear. How many times the community is told not to be afraid. The Angel Gabriel tells Mary “Don't be afraid”, and brings her news of great joy. The angels appear to the shepherds abiding in the fields and tell them to put off their fear and go in joy to Bethlehem. Jesus tells his followers not to be afraid during his life when they are fearful of so many things. He repeats the same message after he had died and was raised again to bring a new life of rejoicing, sending them into all the world to urge a new way of living.

The Apostle Paul was incubated as a viper in that same Roman Empire and spent the first part of his life in fear of those who were different, and as he saw the Jesus movement he knew he had to strike at them. He slithered after them until the love of Jesus caused him to shed his skin and as he says “the scales fell off his eyes” and he was able to see the world in a different way. In his letter for today he says:

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

I was raised in the 50's, the America that would like to believe was “Happy Days”. But there were plenty of vipers in that paradise. There was a fear of people who were different. I lived in the suburbs and there were very few black people there because we whites feared that would ruin our property values. When I would go into the city we would be aware of the different wards of the city for they had different communities of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and black and hispanic areas; suburban WASP kids like me had to be careful.

School was a place for fear with different fearful cliques, crowds of which you either belonged or despised. When we played sports with teams from different schools, we shouted insults with the best of them. We knew we had to do well in school in order to get in to the right college or get the right job.

The economy produced fear for this was the beginning of the Rust Belt Phenomena, as more of the companies that had we had grown up with were packing up and moving; like IBM who moved down to the south, or Link Aviation which sold out to Hughes, or outsourcing to foreign countries like Ansco who got sold out to Hong Kong,. There was the time when Endicott Johnson Shoes brought in new management whose fear drove it into the ground until it shut down with 20,000, at the high point, jobs vanishing, the same year I graduated from college.

We had fear mongers who spread stories about what would happen if the other political party would take over. We had a fear of the Soviet Empire and every couple of weeks we would do an exercise of climbing under our desks for safety when the Nuclear Attack would come. We had people warning us about Un-American or Communist threats.

Our entertainment on television was nonstop detective and western tales that usually had differences resolved by gun fights and proving manhood by killing. Being boys we tried to avoid being seen in any way that could be interpreted as unmanly, so there could be no crying, no pity, no softness, no backing down. We had rules like “make fun of people who wore Yellow on Thursday” and “disparage anyone who we suspected of not being what we considered manly enough and how we would beat them up if they were around”. The closets were full for a good reason. That was 60 years ago and how much of that fear has really changed?

I loved the place in which I grew up but, God help me, I am not lost in nostalgia for it. We were incubating each other to be vipers. Many of the vipers are still around and I have more than a few moments when I slither in thought word or deed. I was fortunate in that part of my understanding is that being a part of a church and being baptized meant I was being called by God to live differently. I was reminded often that following Jesus was not just the giving assent to a religious doctrine but it is a challenge to love, live with, and honor people; fellow images of God, my brothers and sisters from different wombs and DNA. People were not objects of competition but subjects due respect. Some of those brothers and sisters would mess up, just as I would mess up, and I was to pray for them to be forgiven as I prayed for myself to be forgiven.

These are promises my parents made when I was baptized, and I made in my confirmation, and I made for my daughter in her baptism and I made to support those hundreds of children and adults making that decision over the seventy plus years I have been going to church. That is the whole purpose of a church; to bear witness in a community about not having to be vipers out of fear but to be outward and visible signs of a new kind of living in joy without fear. We count on each other to help make a difference as the prophet Micah reminds us “to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.”

This afternoon, your Deacon, Stephen, will make those same kinds of promises of a committed life all of you made when you were baptized when he is ordained as an Episcopal Priest. You and I will make a promise to pray for him and support him in the vows that he makes. He will mess up and he will have viper moments more than once as I have for my more than 35 years of ordained ministry. I have been blessed by people who were honest with me and thought my soul was worth praying for and calling me to account. That will be your job as a community of faith to love him and hold each other to account whenever the viper come slithering back inside us as a result of our fear.

This is the 3^rd Sunday of Advent where the third candle of the wreath is lit to remind us about joy, which is a choice we can make to stay away from the power of fear. Again listen to Paul's letter:

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Brood of Vipers

Inside when in fear I incubate a Viper's brood,

I'll fantasize on whom and what I'll give hurt,

or perhaps withholding love or the extra shirt

waiting if and until I'm getting the right mood.

The Baptizer said love isn't a passing feeling

of a response to good inner vibes or attraction,

rather it's the will's decision to put into action

the promises made to bring about soul healing.

Love decides not to follow fearful incubating

but to step out, somewhat foolishly, but brisk

before fear of being vulnerable stops the risk

of changing our lives and new world creating.

We have made promises both strong and deep;

do justice, love mercy and in God walks keep.

"It's About Time" : Poem and reflection for 2nd Sunday of Advent

A Reflection for the 2^nd Sunday of Advent       St. George's Episcopal Church, Engelhard, N.C. December 9, 2018                                        Thomas E. Wilson, Guest Celebrant and Preacher

Baruch 5:1-9 Luke 1: 68-79(Song of Zechariah) Philippians 1:3-11 Luke 3:1-6

It's About Time.

This is the season of Advent, a favorite season for theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who wrote in his Christmas Sermons about this time;

Celebrating Advent means learning how to wait..… Not all can wait – certainly not those who are satisfied, contented, and feel that they live in the best of all possible worlds! Those who learn to wait are uneasy about their way of life, but yet have seen a vision of greatness in the world of the future and are patiently expecting its fulfillment. The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.

In the Greek of the New Testament, there are two words for time, Chronos and Kairos. Chronos, out of which we get the word Chronometer, a keeper of time, is the time we spend like minutes, hours, days, weeks and years. It is human time, the time when our schedules own us and it so limited that we only can lose time, never gain it. Therefore, we have to be hold tightly to our time and not let it be taken away from us. Before I retired, when I was a Social Worker working in a bureaucracy with people trying to climb out of the holes they found themselves, or later when I was a therapist I had 50 minute billable hours, with 10 minutes before the next session, or when I was a college professor I had 50 minute lecture times, even after I got ordained I had a tendency to be a workaholic. Every moment on my jobs had to be used and paid for because I was a Human Doing not a Human Being pushing my own or the agency's agenda. Pushing like the ancient Greek legend of Sisyphus, an arrogant ruler who missed the point of life and was condemned to roll a heavy boulder up a steep hill only to have it slip at the last moment and it rolls down to the bottom, where. Sisyphus is condemned to repeat the whole process for all eternity. I found perverse comfort in a passage from an essay, The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus:

Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain. It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock. 
 

The longer I worked the workaholic route, the more face and soul were turning into stone. Except, unlike Sisyphus, there were moments in the middle of my Chronos time when it all made sense, when the blame game no longer made sense, when meetings didn't need to go on forever, when bureaucratic procedure dissipated, the politicians stopped playing games with people's lives, when the therapy sessions started to open up to a moment of light shining through as the patient caught the hope of getting better, or when a lecture was opening minds, when work was a gift rather than a task, when the people I was working with were full human beings, when I became a full human being. These are the moments when Chronos time becomes transfigured into Kairos Time. 
 
Kairos time is when “the time has fully come”; it is God's time. It is time which we cannot control. It is the time we do not pay attention to the amount, the quantity, of time but to the quality of the time. We do not spend that time but rather live fully into that time. Think of all times we cannot control; like the birth of a child, or the end of our lives, or the time when are talking with a special friend, or the time we hold our lover in our arms, or the time we hold a child, or spouse, coming home from a trip, or a time when we are with a mourning friend. Think of the time when you are walking on the beach and you see a rainbow or get so interested in the beauty of the clouds, or the birds flying, or the dolphins jumping in the waves, or standing in front of a breath taking work of art, or listening to a heart breaking piece of music. These are the Kairos moments when the world stops rushing and it makes sense.

Luke begins his Gospel lesson for today using Chronos time with the information of the people who were in power at the time; Caesar, Pilate,Herod and the rest. This is the kind of time we are used to. But then Luke switches to the Kairos time of John the Baptizer who is calling us to repent. Now repent does not mean to be sorry or guilty but it means to stop doing what gets in the way of Kairos time. Kairos time is when we are fully aware of the presence of God right here and now is the space between us and our neighbor or creation. 
 
The word “sin” does not mean doing bad things but it is an archery term for “missing the mark”. A life of sin is where we miss the deeper reason or point of living. Last week we lit the first of the four Advent Candles in the Advent Wreath and each candle is meant to shine a light on four of the points of living; Hope, Peace, Joy, “and the greatest of these is Love”. The first candle in the Advent wreath lit last week was for Hope. These four weeks are not a rush to Christmas but a time to learn and live into moving out of Chronos time into a Kairos time of holy waiting for that hope when our valleys will be filled and our high mountains brought low, the crooked roads made straight and the rough paths made smooth by a power greater than ourselves. John is pointing to the coming of Jesus in his life time as his hope and we see the coming of Christ in our lives as our hope.

Today we light a candle for Peace. Now Peace is not an cessation of any armed conflict. The core of sin is that we miss the point and there is a war inside ourselves when we live only in Chronos time and ignore the Kairos time of the constant presence of God. Peace is when we give up the habit of slapping labels on others. Peace is when we are awre of our sin but have the hope for forgiveness and new life. We are called to take each moment and treat it as waiting time, being still so that God may remind us that we are not the center of the universe, nor our agendas which we pathetically hold onto even as we are saying “Thy will be done.”

One of the joys Pat and I have in coming down here is the drive. Most of it is a two lane road offering plenty of time for peaceful reflection. There are the trees coming to life and reclaiming the forest that was devastated years ago in the fires. The fire destroyed the old trees but the seeds survived to grow. It reminds me that even after I die and all of the things that I have done return to the soil, the seeds of love which I have clumsily and haphazardly planted in spite of all my work will continue to grow even if I am not here to tend it. I used to be more of a workaholic, never at peace with myself having to prove my worth with what I do. 

The peace is that I will give what I can and God will take the gift and use it however God wills. I see the marsh land and I marvel at the full life that is there. I look at the vultures and how they are part of a more complex plan than I can understand. I look at the hawks soaring overhead. I look for the bears with peace in my heart. As I drive down here on Sunday morning; I have already written the sermon and placed it on my blog earlier in the week, so I don't worry about it and am free to listen to God preach to me in the silence. It is then that I can follow St. Francis' advice to preach the Gospel and if necessary use words.

On my way back home a couple weeks ago I was given a gift of several Persimmons, that I had to wait to ripen. I thought that sometimes people are like persimmons. You cannot force them to come to a place where they aren't hard and bitter but you have to give them time, time we cannot control, Kairos time, when they can offer themselves up to be the fruit of God's love. It is all about time.

Next week after we have been reminded of the Hope we have given to us, and after we embrace the Peace which passes all understanding, we will light the Joy Candle because living as if I or you are the center of the universe is an exhausting task, but if we move our center to Christ, we are freed from that burden. Finding that Joy frees us to Love which is the last candle of Advent to enter into the light of Christmas, the coming of Christ in our lives not just in Bethlehem two thousand years ago but in Hyde County right here and right now. Because it is about time ending our view of time and entering into God's time.

It's About Time.

Paraphrasing the great prophet, Mae West,

“It's not the the time in my life but the life

in my time that's important.”, leaving strife,

going into a silence to where we're blessed.

It is here where we are able to cast aside

all the agendas, plans and all that clutter

leaving all that stuff to rest in the gutter,

now thereby unburdened with our pride.

Now practicing being still enough to wait

for time, which I cannot control, to listen

to the music of the stars as they christen

each breath of getting Divine time straight.

Help us Lord we pray today in Your time be,

so that we take the time to dwell with Thee.