I wonder how many among you are, like me, feeling a bit hurried or overwhelmed on this Fourth Sunday of Advent, just days before Christmas. This week of the year is synonymous with stress. Perhaps you have presents left to buy, packing or cooking or cleaning to do, and with a few days left it just seems like too much. Maybe its not the busyness, but one thing on your calendar that has you feeling anxious, a family gathering, a difficult relationship you know you will meet face-to-face this week. Maybe its grief—this will be the first Christmas without him…or her…and its going to be really hard, and you know it. Maybe everything is going along fine, you’ve got it all planned, but then somebody gets sick—a child, a parent…you (all of the above)—and now your perfectly planned schedule is thrown off. You may feel like you are the only one in the room experiencing one of these things…I assure you, you are not. We are all vulnerable. It is true. Maybe life has been good to you, you’ve got the holidays planned and the stresses under control, and your schedule is set…you’ve just gotta swing into Whole Foods for a gallon of milk, or you’ve decided to take 5 minutes and pick up that peppermint latte you’ve been craving, and you finish your errand without incident, but then comes the worst challenge on this whole list…you’re in the parking lot of Rookwood Commons…and you can’t get out!
Take a deep breath…and let it out. And let’s be honest, for some of us, the stresses I’m describing does not exist only at Christmas, and it can’t be resolved with a deep breath. Please come and talk to one of us if you need help.
Where is Jesus anyway, in all this hustle and bustle? What happens to Jesus’ call to help others when we’re struggling to take care of ourselves? Why does the week before Christmas seem to be the most difficult of weeks to feel the calm and the closeness of God? What can we do about it, what does the Bible teach? Did any of them struggle as we do?
Let’s start this way: Most of us know someone who is immune to these stresses—or so it seems. Most of us can think of someone who walks through life with an unusual sense of calm. Not much of anything seems to upset them. They’ve been through a lot, and even in the midst of struggles, they remain grounded. They just seem to know that things will be alright.
Now, let’s be honest—some folks who appear to be that way…they are lying! They’re putting on a show, and if you look behind the curtain, their life is just a messy as everyone else’s; in fact it’s worse, because they’re also putting on a show.
But there are people out there who are more calm and grounded than the rest of us. They have figured something out that most of us are lacking. They have a sense of peace that carries them through highs and lows. And there are a couple of common threads, special things that make these folks tick. One is that they are not putting on a show, and you know it because a part of their M-O is that they talk about their struggles. Without embarrassment, they are transparent about their imperfections and just try to live with them; because they are not trying to be perfect, they are gracious to others and also gentler on themselves. Imperfection is one common thread to being grounded. And here’s the second: they know that they cannot do it alone.
This Advent in worship we’ve been talking about Elisha. Elisha was an Old Testament prophet, and his deep spiritual life helps us to see the story of Christmas through fresh eyes. Elisha is one of those grounded people I’ve been describing. In one story I told you, he keeps his cool when an enemy army is literally on his doorstep. In another story I told, he does something less showy but equally miraculous; he teaches a powerful General how to accept help. Do these stories sound like metaphors—because they are. Don’t you know someone who doesn’t know how to accept help? Haven’t you ever felt like an enemy is waiting right outside of your door and wondered how to keep your cool? Elisha knows how to do these things; and importantly, he does not learn them by instinct or accident, and he does not do them alone.
Elisha was not always the great prophet; before that, he was the apprentice. The great prophet Elijah was the one who showed Elisha how to live, and Elijah too, was one of those people who had to learn how to trust God.
Here are a couple of stories of Elijah, in a few words each: In one story, early in life, God sends a horrible drought and famine upon the land. God tells Elijah to go to a certain place to wait things out, and when he gets there, the stream dries up and he survives only because of the food and drink shared with him by a simple and generous widow. It’s a metaphor, of course. For one thing, God doesn’t send famine upon a whole nation of people just to teach one guy a lesson; but also it’s a story about how struggle can teach us to put our trust in God. Because of this early lesson, later, when an evil King and Queen become jealous of Elijah and threaten his life, he simply steals away to a desert cave where he awaits the still small voice of God—and God shows up. Elijah knows how to do this; he knows how to trust God when times get hard, because he’s been practicing it his whole life.
When Elijah’s days on earth are through, when his life is about at an end, we meet him in the story that was read today—he’s passing the torch to Elisha. A chariot comes to carry Elijah up to heaven. Elisha, the apprentice, who feels he does not yet have enough faith to take over, is begging his teacher, “leave me a double measure of your spirit!” Elisha the apprentice cries and screams as the chariot carries Elijah away up into heaven.
But once Elijah is gone, when the fiery chariot disappears, and the riverside is quiet once more, something else happens: the nervous young Elisha picks up from the ground his teacher’s abandoned mantle, his cloak, touches the waters of the river with it, and miraculously, like Moses did in ancient days, the water parts, and Elisha crosses dry land back to his homeland where he will lead his people. He is not so alone as he thought, and is more ready for leadership than he knew, but not because of who he is, but because he has learned from the help of his teacher, Elijah, and God is with him.
I wonder if you’ve ever thought about the Christmas stories through this same lens? The people we meet in the Christmas stories are not without struggles or fears—none of them are perfect; but neither are any of them alone. All of these people are very anxious and afraid. The shepherds who go to meet Jesus fear the angel, and the Kings likewise don’t know what to make of the star. The angels who meet them say almost nothing to them, other than encouraging them to “fear not”…because that’s what they need to hear! And where are they going? What are they seeking? Why do they undertake such a journey? Because both the shepherds in their poverty and the kings in their wealth, they know they need something—they need help from one whose wisdom is greater than their own.
Joseph and Mary’s stories are similar. Both are scared to death by the news of the child that is to be born; Joseph is a righteous man who risks being disgraced by the pregnancy; Mary is a vulnerable young woman who risks shame and abandonment. All this is in addition to how frightening parenthood is to every mother and father! But Joseph gets help from an angel in a dream; and Mary not only by that, but by a visit with her beloved cousin Elizabeth. She goes to stay with the cousin she looks up to, who listens and understands, and tells a story of the unexpected birth of her own son, named John.
The bravery we witness again and again in scripture is no accident and no coincidence. These people are not born with it, they are not immune to suffering, and they are not self-reliant. They have friends and mentors, they are open about their fears, and that is what helps them to thrive. They are helped and encouraged by friends. They move slowly enough and listen well enough to hear the urging of God through angels and signs. It is in all these ways that they are grounded.
Here is an experience I’ve had in this congregation: there is always some beautiful story going on about people in need who ask for help, and are surrounded by the love of this community. I’m sure many of you in this room can think of the current examples. It is also true that there are scores of people in this community who are so eager to help, if only they are asked; even the busiest among us always seem to have time to help when asked, because helping someone is so meaningful and important. Finally, I know that there are always people in this community who find themselves in need and who suffer through their struggles alone, because they cannot imagine asking for help. That’s the tragedy. Help isn’t always dramatic and often it begins with things that are far from life-threatening. Sometimes its just the courage to ask a friend to join you for coffee so that you can tell them about something you can’t figure out. And often the help is not based on expertise and takes little more than the gift of time; many times the greatest help just looks like…listening.
Love is not so much a feeling or emotion, but rather a way of being that we practice over time. It begins with small actions and experiments that soon become habits, and often we don’t know how we learned to do it. But love always begins with God.
I called this last Advent sermon “Love Begins at the Manger” because that’s what I see happening. I had not really thought of it this way before, but maybe for Mary and Joseph, this time away from home was just what they needed. Time away from the demands of regular life, from what was familiar to them, a break was the help they needed. They’ve brought with them to Bethlehem all of their fears and anxieties about where this unexpected pregnancy is going to lead, but they find themselves, at least for a night, set aside from what they knew, in the simplest of surroundings, suddenly quiet, and unable to ignore the clear voice of God, showing them the way into tomorrow.
Many of us may need God, and a good friend, to help us find a place of quiet listening. Maybe you need to make a good decision about simplifying your hurried life, or to work your way through the grief of a loss, or the pain of a difficult relationship. Some of us just need the permission to be less than perfect, or the time to dig out of a difficult week and regain our footing. And some of us just need to take a deep breath while we wait to get out of the Rookwood parking lot.
I want to invite each of us into just a few moments of silence, so that each one of us might pray to God, sharing what it is that we need help with… Be grateful and be honest. Let us pray…
May we receive the help that we need. May we experience God’s love at the manger this week. May we become the imperfect people God has created us to be, so that we can share God’s love with the world. Amen.