Advent Attitudes: Change
SCRIPTURE TEXT: Matthew 3:1-10, Rev. Monte Marshall
The late poet and author, Maya Angelou, once said this about change: “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”[1] Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr also addressed change: “Change,” Niebuhr said, “is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you can become.”[2]
During this Advent season, we are looking to develop an Advent Attitude of change that is willing to surrender all of what we are to move more deeply into the beauty of what we can become. Developing this attitude is an essential preparation for receiving the coming of Christ in new and transforming ways.
Let’s pray: O Holy One, come. Turn us around. Prepare us for your Reign. Orient us toward the Morning Star. Shine in us the Light that dispels the darkness. Create in us an attitude of change that is quick to embrace your life-giving way in the world, in the name of Jesus, the Christ. Amen.
In Matthew’s gospel, a wild man from the margins called John the Baptizer is the prophet of change. He’s a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for God’s coming Messiah. His appearance identifies him with the prophet Elijah. He also claims Isaiah’s prophetic mantel as God’s bulldozer, clearing a straight path for God in the desert.
John addresses us all: “Change your hearts and minds, for the reign of heaven is about to break in upon you!” Later, when Jesus appears on the scene, he sounds the same theme, but with a telling variation: “Change your hearts and minds, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”[3]
In Matthew’s story, the city folk come to John from Jerusalem. The country folk come to him from Judea and the region surrounding the Jordan. Those ready for a change admit that all is not right with their lives and the world in which they live. They place their hope for change in the reign of God breaking in upon them. They go down into the Jordan River to be washed by John in baptism as a sign of their participation in change.
Others also come to the water but without a commitment to change. These are religious leaders, steeped in the status quo. God’s bulldozer does his best to break through their resistance with the equivalent of a prophetic intervention. John calls them to change by using tough rhetoric that holds them accountable for their participation in social, political and religious systems that are, in so many ways, destructive to them, to other people and to God’s way in the world.
So here’s the question for us today: Is everything right in our lives and in the world in which we live? If not, then isn’t time for a change?
Pastor and spiritual director, David Griebner, tells a story that beautifully illustrates the experience of embracing an Advent Attitude of change. The story is titled, Shadowbound.
“Once upon a time there was a man who lived in the middle of a desert. Yet, that was not quite true. It would be better to say that he was a prisoner of the desert. You see, somehow and sometime in the past our friend had acquired the habit of following his shadow, and only his shadow. It was a relentless and unbending compass which he obeyed completely and followed without question. Every morning when the sun came up he began walking in the direction his shadow pointed. As the sun traced its slow crescent across the sky he followed the subtle bending of his shadow. By the end of the day he had traced a rough oval and was nearly back to where he had started in the morning. While his course varied a little with the seasons of the year and the speed he walked, it wasn’t much, and it was never enough to allow him to leave the desert.
“This had been going on for as long as he could remember. It was familiar and comfortable, the only way he knew. Yet he also had to admit that it often left him feeling trapped and alone. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to face the sun instead of always turning his back to it and walking the other way. And he longed to see if there might not be something more to the world than the desert, but he never seemed to have enough resolve ever to do anything different.
“Then one morning, while it was still dark, as he was preparing to set out again, something came and spoke to him. It was a voice. At least it was more like a voice than anything else. It said, ‘JUST STOP IT.’ That’s all, ‘JUST STOP IT.’
“’JUST STOP IT?’…Could it be that simple? What a lovely thought. Yet it was a foreboding thought as well. Certainly there was joy and hope in what the voice suggested, but there was also fear and dread because following his shadow was the only way he knew to get around—such as it was!
“About this time the sun came up, and with it the powerful tug of his growing shadow. He tried to resist it but could not. Yet all that day, even as he obediently followed his shadow, the memory of the Voice and the experience of the morning stayed with him.... And while he made no significant changes over the next few days, it was enough just to have some hope.
“Then one morning, just a moment before dawn, he suddenly turned his back to the dark, western horizon and faced the glow in the east. It was done almost before he realized what he was doing. The freedom to do it happened in the moment. And he recognized in his new freedom the presence again of the Voice, which lovingly offered him what he could not offer himself.
“The rising sun in front of him was brighter and more wonderful than he had imagined anything could ever be. As the sun cut across the sky that first day it was all he could do just to stand there and face the light, turning slowly now to keep his shadow in back of him! There was no question about going anywhere. Yet, as the day passed, his shadow became less and less intimidating and his new freedom more and more familiar, even if it was just to stand still.
“Finally, one morning, the Voice came again. As with the other times, he could not fully describe what happened, only that the Voice brought him another gift. The gift this time was a sense of direction.
“Slowly, he put one foot in front of the other, fixed his gaze on some distant mountains, and set out. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but at least he wasn’t still going around in circles. And he certainly didn’t feel alone anymore.”[4]
Dear friends, are we ready to JUST STOP IT? Are we ready to heed the Voice, to face the sun, and to move on in freedom? Are we ready to pay attention to the wild man in the desert and develop an Advent Attitude of change that is willing to surrender all of what we are to move more deeply into the beauty of what we can become within the reign of God? May God’s will be done. Amen.
CONTEMPORARY READING—Caroline/David Lodge: You are invited now to enter a brief time of reflection on the attitude of change in your own life. We will begin by hearing a brief contemporary reading entitled, “Che Jesus.” Let us listen for the Spirit’s alluring call to us:
“They told me that you came back to be born every Christmas. Man, you’re crazy....with this stubborn gesture of coming back every Christmas you are trying to tell us something:
“That the revolution that all proclaim begins first of all in each one’s heart. That it doesn’t mean only changing structure but changing selfishness for love. That we have to stop being wolves and return to being brothers and sisters. That we . . . begin to work seriously for individual conversion and social change that will give to all the possibility of having bread, education, freedom, and dignity. That you have a message that’s called the Gospel,
“And a Church, and that’s us - - A Church that wants to be servant of all, a Church that knows that because God became human one Christmas there is no other way to love God but to love all people.
“If that’s the way it is, Jesus, come to my house this Christmas, come to my country, come to all creation. And first of all, come to my heart.”[5]
TIME FOR REFLECTION AND RESPONSE-–Pastor Taylor: You are invited to take a “Response Card” and write your response as we reflect quietly for a few minutes on this question: What one thing am I prepared to change in my life during this Advent season?
[1] "A Quote by Maya Angelou." Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.
[2] "A Quote by Reinhold Niebuhr." Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.
[3] Matthew 4:17, IB.
[4] Griebner, David M. "Shadowbound." Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life VI.No. 2 (1991): 32-33. Print.
[5] Lawrence, Kenneth, Jann Cather Weaver, Roger William. Wedell, and Susan A. Blain. "Che Jesus." Imaging the Word: An Arts and Lectionary Resource. Vol. 3. Cleveland, OH: United Church, 1994. 87. Print.