Sunday began the season of Advent, a season I cherish. This year I am receiving these four weeks of waiting before Christmas with more silence. In the quiet and dark, I hope to be better able to hear the voices I need to hear.
John the baptizer cries out in the wilderness. Sometimes he speaks of cutting down trees that aren’t bearing good fruit and throwing them into the fire. This sounds terrifying and awful; I want nothing to do with it. Then I remember that I’ve done precisely that.
I’m one of the coordinators of a community garden on the West Side of Chicago. We had a peach tree that was stunted and diseased, rarely bearing mature fruit. Eventually we saw that removing it would allow something else to flourish in its place. A chainsaw-wielding volunteer reduced the tree to a stump and a pile of wood. Since my home has a backyard fire pit, I took some branches to burn. My beloved and I watched the flames as the tree that wasn’t bearing good fruit turned to embers, then ash.
Eschewing stunted and diseased understandings of John the baptizer’s metaphor, I look for the challenge it holds that I need to hear. What oppressive ideas do I need to clear away and throw into the fire? What harmful patterns in relating to others do I have to remove to allow compassion and just action to flourish?
Gathered and Scattered
Earlier this week I had the delight of announcing that I’m among 30 North American pastoral leaders being awarded a 2021–2022 Pastoral Study Project grant by the Louisville Institute. This will provide funding for me to spend 18 months (half of each workweek) researching and writing a biography of the Community of Christ, the ecumenical congregation in D.C. where I grew up. My working title is Gathered and Scattered: The Life and Death of an Innovative Urban Church.
Part of my research will include unusual models of congregational life in North America in the past six decades. I welcome hearing from any of you about communities you know who’ve organized themselves differently from the norm, for example in the way the priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam shares leadership with the membership. Or one committed to consensus-based decision-making. Please feel free to be in touch anytime!
Reading and listening
December 22, Advent 4A (Matthew 1:18–25; Isaiah 7:10–16; Romans 1:1–7)
In Luke, Mary says that she’s a virgin. Do I believe her?
A lectionary column I wrote for the Fourth Sunday of Advent; though published last year, Luke 1:34 is central, for any lectionary preachers concerned about that.
Prayer Pod: seven minutes of meditation
It has been lovely to be logistics coordinator for this creative project, contacting poets about recordings of their work to be set with original music compositions. This all-Chicago-contributors episode with poet Li-Young Lee and music by my friend and colleague Tim Kim is one of my favorites, offering seven minutes to meditate.