O King of Nations... come

[This post is sixth in a series of Advent meditations, exploring the "O Antiphon" for each day as we walk the final steps toward the celebration of the incarnation on the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord.]

Come,

King of all Nations,
source of your Church's unity and faith:
save all humankind, your own creation!

When you are a preacher, you trade in image and metaphor. People experience reality through images, so having the right image to portray the right theological point is essential. Perhaps one of the best I ever heard in a sermon was from a colleague of mine at my former parish, Father Daniel Lennox.

"O Ruler"
Sister Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ

He talked about an experience he had as a Canadian playing hockey, a story I don't remember all of but I do remember ended with him in a hockey fight on the ice with the opposing team's mascot. He talked about how one of the things we do to people is that we turn them into caricatures, into mascots of other things, and how this enables us to attack them, to pummel them into the ice and not feel guilty because we have long since stopped to see their humanity.

That image has stuck with me because it resonates with my own sense of the way we create divisions among ourselves in humanity. Difference is not bad, having different groups that explore and experience reality differently is not a bad thing. By engaging with those different than us, those with different views, ideals, and outlooks, we can see how the truth is much bigger than us, than our own extremely limited perspective.

Division, however, is when we turn people or groups into caricatures of themselves, into mascots of some evil we abhor so that we can pummel them into the ice without needing to feel the slightest bit of guilt.

This is not of God.

The incarnation of God demonstrates once and for all that God is the God of all people. Everyone from poor shepherds, to weirdo astrologers from the east, to a couple old people that hang out at the temple all the time, to a young pregnant teenage mother and her husband... these are the ones who are on this Advent journey with us, these are the ones who will rejoice when the king of all is finally revealed.

And I wonder, beloved of God, who do you know that you have turned into a caricature? What person or what group of people do you really want to beat into the ice? Can you see, can you see, beloved, that this person or this group is walking alongside you on this journey... can you see that they are also reaching out for wholeness, a wholeness that can only be found when we love and embrace the other?

O come, Desire of nations, 
bind in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid thou our sad divisions cease,
and be thyself our King of Peace.

O Radiant Dawn... come

[This post is fifth in a series of Advent meditations, exploring the "O Antiphon" for each day as we walk the final steps toward the celebration of the incarnation on the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord.]

Come,

Radiant Dawn,
splendor of eternal light, sun of justice:
shine on those 
lost in the darkness of death!

The night is a strange place. I've never been on a job that required me to work third-shift, the closest I ever got was several nights working late closing restaurants or bars. I've also (thankfully) always been a pretty decent sleeper, but every now and then I wake up in the middle of the night and can't fall asleep.

"O Dayspring"
Sister Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ

The worst is when this happens in the context of a night terror. I began having these when I was an adolescent, experiences of waking from a sound sleep with an overwhelming sense of dread, very similar to a panic attack. They generally last around thirty minutes, or until I can calm down enough to fall back asleep, but sometimes they drag on, keeping me wide awake and fearful.

My wife is a light sleeper, she also wakes up in the night, though not with panic attacks. Instead, she starts worrying about things and before she knows it she is wide awake, worrying about this or that, unable to shut her mind off, close her eyes, and drift back to sleep.

The first day I ever went deer hunting, I walked in the dark woods out to a small land-blind I had scouted out earlier in the day. I remember sitting on a small stool there, watching the colors around me change as the sun slowly came up. It's still my favorite part of deer hunting—sitting in a blind or in a tree stand and watching the world around you come alive.

It reminds me that no matter how powerful night may seem—it is never permanent.

Where I live, Advent always falls during a dark time of the year. Singing about daylight falling and vesper lights arising in Evening Prayer absolutely makes sense at 5:15pm. And I've had people I loved who struggled with seasonal depression because of it, who struggled with the loss of light and how that can mess with your body.

But the night is not as powerful as it seems.

And I find it rather powerful that it was in the dead of night that a single cry pierced the night. After Mary's cries of childbirth, another cry came, that of God incarnate entering this world through blood and sweat and tears... and even societal shame.

I like to think that when God's voice pierced the darkness in the cry of a little baby boy, night itself shivered.

And I wonder, beloved of God, what night seems to cover your own heart? Can you look to the edges and see that color beginning to change? The sun is coming up as the son approaches. Dawn is almost here. And the night will never again be as powerful as it once seemed.

O come, thou Dayspring from on high, 
and cheer us by they drawing nigh;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death's dark shadow put to flight.

O Key of David... come

[This post is fourth in a series of Advent meditations, exploring the "O Antiphon" for each day as we walk the final steps toward the celebration of the incarnation on the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord.]

Come,

Key of David,
opening the gates
of God's eternal kingdom:
free the prisoners of darkness! 

I'm horrible with keys. I'm always misplacing them, setting them down one place and then having to struggle to remember where in the world I left them. I leave them in doors, on tables, in pockets, I'm pretty horrible with them.

"O Key"
Sister Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ

But I've gotten better—primarily by training myself, like others, to always set them down in the same places.

So now, when I cannot find my keys, I look first in my coat pocket. Then, if I'm at home, I check the dish on the sideboard in the dining room. If I'm at work, I check my desk (or, if Cappy is with me, I check my office door, because I use them to get in and out of a door that automatically locks).

When you get your first set of keys to something, it feels rather magical. Or, at least it did to me. Finally now I am trusted with access to a place, access all on my own without someone else there to let me in. One of the fundamental symbols of ministry in the installation of a rector is the giving over of the keys of the church.

One of the best canticles in Morning Prayer, in my opinion, is Canticle 11: The Third Song of Isaiah (Surge, illuminare). The canticle is a song of joyful singing over the new Jerusalem, drawing from the exuberance of the final chapters of Isaiah. One of the lines in the canticle sings, "Your gates will be open; by day or night they will never be shut."And that's not just in some crazy liberal canticle, it's right there in the eleventh verse of chapter sixty!

The gates of the new Jerusalem will never be shut.

It's almost like when Jesus took on our sinfulness, he also took on the way I lose keys, like he took the keys to the gates of heaven and tossed them out the window, never to use them again.

The gates of our city are never locked.

And the one key in the afterlife that he holds on to is this: the key to the misery and prisons into which we place ourselves. We will never again need to be prisoners of darkness, scrambling for keys to get us out of the prisons we create for ourselves... he's got that key clasped tightly in his hand, ready to open that gate up and welcome you to a home where he busted the locks off the door long ago.

And I wonder, beloved of God, what doors and prisons do you long for God to open in your heart and in your life? What gates do you long to see Christ trample down? And do you see, oh beloved, do you see... the gate to our home is wide open.

O come, thou Key of David, come,
and open wide our heavenly home;
make safe the way that leads on high,
and close the path to misery.

O Root of Jesse... come

[This post is third in a series of Advent meditations, exploring the "O Antiphon" for each day as we walk the final steps toward the celebration of the incarnation on the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord.]

Come,

Flower of Jesse's Stem,
sign of God's love for all his people:
save us without delay 

Have you ever seen a tree freshly chopped down, the stump fresh and moist with sap that was running only a moment before? It smells like life and death all together at once.

"O Root"
Sister Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ

Or, perhaps, have you ever seen a very old stump, one that is all the remains from a tree that was chopped down or fell down years and years go? It is often covered with moss but sometimes growing out of it you can see a shoot, as though the tree refused to believe that it is dead and insists that life will continue no matter its condition.

A think that a shoot coming out of a stump is one of the most rebellious things in all of nature.

Two years in a row, I was sitting in my living room on Christmas morning when my wife and I got a phone call that someone we loved had died. Two years in a row. It changes how you see Christmas.

And though I'm only in my early thirties, I've already had experiences of really shaking my fist at death, at longing for victory over that grave, not just the sort you sing about but the sort you see... the sort where people you miss are suddenly with you once more, as everyone laughs at a death that is not nearly as powerful as it pretends to be.

I think that this antiphon is God's people sticking up a big middle finger at all the things that seem to destroy us, that seem to destroy those we love. I think this antiphon is God's people longing for God's power to come so that they can final tell of that menace of death... so that they don't have to say goodbye once more.

Because every year I'm a priest I find funerals to be a more emotional part of my ministry. Every year I grow closer to my parishioners and letting them go because that much harder.

So I gotta trust, I gotta believe, that what my people tell me is true: life is changed not ended. I gotta believe that there will come a day when I'll finally slip my hand inside that of each person I love who has slipped away and whisper a tearful hello.

And I wonder, beloved of God, who comes to your mind in these final days of Advent, as the feast of the Nativity approaches? When you consider Satan's tyranny finally being overthrown, when you contemplate the tantalizing promise of victory over even the grave, that no relationship we have will ever be fully destroyed that all will be redeemed... when you consider this Advent truth, who comes to your mind?

I hope you'll introduce me to them when we all meet on the other side of the Jordan. I think we'd get along grand.

O come, thou Branch of Jesse's tree,
free them from Satan's tyranny
that trust thy mighty power to save, 
and give them victory o'er the grave.

O Adonai... come

[This post is second in a series of Advent meditations, exploring the "O Antiphon" for each day as we walk the final steps toward the celebration of the incarnation on the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord.]

Come,

Leader of Ancient Israel

giver of the Law to Moses on Sinai:

rescue us with your mighty power! 

A lot of my upbringing involved arguing with people about the law. I was raised in a protestant tradition that believed we were saved by grace through faith... but that also believed Christians were supposed to think and act and believe a certain way. We'd argue with the Baptists all the time about how you were saved by grace, but you still had to do things to be a good Christian.

"O Adonai"
Sister Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ

When I got to college and began studying this whole law thing, I discovered that Christians have been trying to figure this out for quite a while. That made me feel better that I didn't know exactly how to parse it. Perhaps the most important thing I learned in that whole undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies, though, was this—people in the times of the Hebrew Bible were also saved by grace.

Of course, Paul himself makes this exact argument, insisting that Abraham was saved by faith.. but then James has to go and make the opposite argument, kind of screwing the whole thing up a bit for anyone who thinks the Bible alone can answer all questions. So I never really knew who to believe.

But in freshman Old Testament survey, the professor had us memorize Joel 2:12-13. It was one of several texts he told us to memorize, but I think he had us do this one so we'd have a go to answer to anyone who said the God of the Old Testament was a God of anger.

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
“Return to Me with all your heart,
And with fasting, weeping and mourning;
And rend your heart and not your garments.”
Now return to the Lord your God,
For He is gracious and compassionate,
Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness
And relenting of evil.

That phrase, "slow to anger" is all over the place in the Hebrew Bible. There's law, make no mistake, but the law was never intended to give full life. The law was intended to give us a shape for what it meant to live as God's people in a certain time. There are, as much as some people want to deny it, things God's people are called to do and think and say and believe... the trick is pulling the actual law of God for today apart from one particular culture or people's understanding of that law.

That's what we've gotta try for, to let go of the laws we want to create and to open ourselves to the law God wants to offer us—because the law God offers is one that will heal relationships, one that will enable us to live as God's love in this world.

And if you've ever been pissed off by some religious person who thought they had the law down pat, and who used it to beat you over the head, then I think this antiphon is for you.

But watch out, because sometimes when God brings the law to your heart, you find that you also are pushed to change your own views, to let go of some of your actions, some of your thoughts and desires so that you can love how God invites you to love.

And I wonder, beloved of God, were you to place God's gracious law alongside of you own life, where would you find mercy? I wonder, beloved of God, were you to place God's gracious law alongside of your own life,, where would you be called to change?

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
who to thy tribes on Sinai's height
in ancient times once gave the law
in cloud and majesty and awe.

O Wisdom... come

[This post is first in a series of Advent meditations, exploring the "O Antiphon" for each day as we walk the final steps toward the celebration of the incarnation on the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord.]

Come, 
Wisdom, 
of our God Most High, 
guiding creation with power and love: 
teach us to walk 
in the paths of knowledge.

It's so very difficult to know the right way to go sometimes. You are faced with several paths, some clear and some murky, and you don't know which one God is inviting you to walk down.

"O Wisdom"
Sister Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ

I remember sitting in the 8:00am Rite I service at the Church of the Heavenly Rest several years ago now. I had long ago ceased to feel "at home" in the Churches of Christ I was raised in and had started sneaking into the early service at the big stone church in Abilene.

I remember Father Scott preaching that day, clear as though it was yesterday. And like a bolt of light, something pierced my heart. I heard a voice whisper—if you want this to be home, it can be. If you want to serve me in ministry, you could do it here.

Immediately I was pulled out of paying attention as my mind began wresting with this idea. I don't think I had ever before seriously considered that I could choose to make my home in another tradition. I had thought about, for years I had thought about it, but I had never actually seen that path appear. It was more of some mystical dream I did not take seriously.

But as Father Scott preached in his soft West Texas accent, I realized that a path had indeed opened that I had never seen. All of the sudden, I looked down and realized that the Wisdom of God had been inviting me here, calling me down this path for years. And though I hadn't recognized the voice, I had been walking the path.

"This can be your home. You can serve me here."

One of my favorite prayers in the BCP is the one for guidance that says, in part, "in the midst of our doubts and uncertainties, give us grace to do what you would have us to do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices..."

I had not realized the actual choices that did lie in front of me until the Wisdom of God pushed into my heart that morning and showed me the reality that I had never seen—I could be invited into a new home.

And I have not regretted walking down that path for one moment since.

And I wonder, beloved of God, if you were to still your heart today, what would the wisdom of God open up to you? What choice would become clear that has been murky? What path is there that you have not yet, until this moment, truly seen?

O come, thou Wisdom from on high,

who orderest all things mightily;

to us the path of knowledge show,

and teach us in her ways to go.

New Abortion Law is Immoral and Cruel

My December 14, 2013, article for the Grand Haven Tribune, New Abortion Law is Immoral and Cruel,

On Wednesday afternoon, the Legislature of our state passed a new law on abortion coverage in the Michigan. The new law requires women to buy additional insurance if they want abortion coverage in their health insurance plans, and it will take affect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns for the year. 

Though Gov. Rick Snyder has previously vetoed a bill with similar provisions, this initiative was brought before the Legislature by a Right to Life petition that garnered 315,477 signatures —around 4 percent of our state’s voters. 

And, as a priest, I feel compelled to say that this bill is immoral and cruel.

Read more at the Tribune's website here.