“Fishers of Men” by Rex DeLoney, Little Rock, Arkansas
“This Advent, our Advent, is a time of creation. God’s spirit abides in us—brooding over our waters—shaping and forming us, being formed and shaped by us. God alone knows what we shall become. God has visited us with grace and favor. Are we ready to become Light?”—Caryll Houselander, woodcarver and mystic
“As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers … And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately, they left their nets and followed him”.—Matthew 4: 18-20
There is a church near my house called “Fisherman of Men Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, Inc.” The insistently masculine language always makes me laugh. It’s as if the church-namers knew that the narrow image of a patriarchal God was on its way out and so over- compensate. Or to paraphrase Shakespeare, “Me thinks they doth protest too much.”
Paradoxically, I find this invitation from Jesus to Peter and Andrew, then James and John, to be distinctly subversive of patriarchy. Jesus woos them like a lover. He seduces them into leaving their fathers’ houses, like young women leaving home to join the home of their husband’s family.
These men respond to Jesus as if they are in love. There is no cognitive decision making. They fall in love. They drop their nets—representing their known world. They follow, like a lover after her beloved. They have eyes only for him.
When were you last in love?
Breathe in. Breathe out. It’s Ad……vent.
With gratitude to Pax Christi USA where some of these reflections first appeared in print..
These signs (above) have been popping up around the country. My friend Kimberly Burge (buy her book The Born Frees) spotted them in Mt. Pleasant in D.C. My friend Duane Shank has spotted them in Goshen, Indiana.
It turns out they were created by folks at Immanuel Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va.–and they are spreading like wildfire!
Immanuel Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Virginia, decided to put up a sign proclaiming our shared value of welcoming foreigners. The wording for the sign came from our pastor Matthew Bucher and was hand painted by another member of the congregation, Melissa Howard.
It reads, “No matter where you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor” in three languages: English, Spanish and Arabic. IMC’s neighbors speak many languages, but primarily one of these three. Matthew said, “I hope that the sign is a marker to the community. And, I hope that folks leaving IMC after a service are reminded of who we are to be. “
The first week of Advent focuses on The Prophet’s Candle, symbolizing Hope. Print your own poster for your front yard. Get a group of friends or your church together and get a local printer to make some for all of you.
Just download the PDF, and it is ready to print a 24 inch x 18 inch sign. Please keep the text as it is when you use this sign. Please share where you posted the sign at Welcome Your Neighbors on Facebook.
Bill Wylie-KellermannMy brother Bill Kellermann, Methodist pastor in Detroit, offers a stiff drink of a sermon for the first Sunday of Advent.
“Thirty years ago during anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, an order of Pretoria regime, forbid the singing of carols in the Black townships because they stirred up such energy and hope. A newspaper report quoted a South African police agent: “Carols are too emotional to be sung in a time of unrest…Candles have become revolutionary symbols.” (See Walter Bruggemann, Israel’s Praise)
I think the same is rightly true of the Advent Wreath – it tells a circle of resistance, a No in the form of a Yes.
Yes is to work of God in Hope, Peace, Joy (the pink candle), and Love
Yes to Hope says NO to the despair that paralyzes and disempowers us all.
Yes to Peace says NO to all the violence that is growing and raging unleashed in the present darkness. Isaiah says for the nations and peoples to learn the ways of Lord, they must unlearn war, and we might say its kin – white supremacy, misogyny, islamaphobia, homophobia. If we want to learn the ways of peace, can’t study war no more.
Yes to Joy says NO to what? Maybe it too resists the gloom of despair, but I’m inclined to set it against fake joy, the ersatz happiness attached to all things marketable.
Lastly the “Wage Love” candle is a great Yes which says NO both to fear and to hate. Personally and communally, this is a lovely (and deadly serious) spiritual agenda for the season; in it we practice for the whole of life.”–Bill Wylie Kellermann
Since this important list by historian Timothy Snyder is only posted on Facebook, I want to publish it here in full.
Snyder is one of the leading American historians and public intellectuals, and enjoys perhaps greater prominence in Europe, the subject of most of his work. He is the Housum Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. His focus is modern Europe and the rise of nationalist movements.
20 Things American Can Learn From Countries Who Lost Their Democracy
by Timothy Snyder
Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.
1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You’ve already done this, haven’t you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.
2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don’t protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
3. Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.
4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of “terrorism” and “extremism.” Be alive to the fatal notions of “exception” and “emergency.” Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don’t fall for it. (more…)
During Advent, I’ll be posting some short Advent reflections, with the idea of sharing together our Advent journey.
Gather your evergreens. Go buy (or make) purple and pink candles. Get wire to make your wreath and a few simple purple and pink ribbons to weave together the greens. Clear a space on the kitchen table or anyplace where your household gathers. Write down a short Bible passage on an index card – something from the Prophet Isaiah would be great – and keep it near the wreath.
Now that we’ve cleared a space for prayer and quiet celebration at home, we can begin clearing the same kind of space in our heart. It’s time to get ready!
In a 2012 CBN interview, Trump said fans often send him Bibles. He keeps every one of them “in a very nice place,” he said.
“There’s no way I would ever throw anything, to do anything negative to a Bible,” Trump said. “I would have a fear of doing something other than very positive, so actually I store them and keep them and sometimes give them away to other people but I do get sent a lot of Bibles and I like that. I think that’s great.”
versus
Matthew 10:34: “Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy. I’ve come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God.” (The Message translation)
(Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
We’ll have about 13 joining us today for Thanksgiving dinner. I hope you will join us in spirit by sharing our Thanksgiving Table Prayer wherever you are.
Thanksgiving Table Prayer
by Rose Marie Berger
Blessed art thou, Lord our God, Creator of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.
Open our hearts to peace and healing between all people.
Open our hearts to provide for and protect all the children of the earth.
Open our hearts to respect for the earth and all the gifts of the earth.
Crowd our open hearts with gratitude as we celebrate this feast of Thanksgiving.
We pause now and, silently or aloud, offer our thanks for Your great generosity. [Allow for silent reflection or short spoken prayers.]
We thank you for the gifts of one another–especially for the gifts of love and affection that are freely shared among us and with the creatures of the earth.
We thank you for all who are present at this our feast as well as for all those who have labored in love to bring this dinner to our table.
May You, our God, bless this Thanksgiving feast and all of us who share it. May it nourish our bodies and strengthen our souls that we may serve the “least of these” in the days to come. Amen.
Joe Roos, Sojourners co-founder and Mennonite pastor, sent this letter below to Mr. Trump. I recommend that all individuals who are deeply disturbed by Mr. Trump’s white nationalist policies do the same. And that all houses of worship set up letter-writing campaigns with a similar letter tailored to their faith tradition.
A PLEDGE OF RESISTANCE: MY LETTER TO DONALD TRUMP
Today I mailed the following letter to Donald Trump. I also sent similar letters to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. I share it with any of my friends on FB who want to read it, but not with pride or self-indulgence. I share it with you with some genuine fear and trembling and with the desire for you to hold me accountable to what I here say. This is my pledge of resistance to the principalities and powers of American Empire:
November 11, 2016
President-Elect Donald J. Trump
Trump Tower
725 – 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Dear President-Elect Trump,
I am a white, 70 year old pastor from California. As a follower of Jesus, I seek the path of inclusion, justice, peacemaking and love. Your campaign was dominantly about exclusion, inequality, the use of violence and hatred of the other. I will follow Jesus and not you.
Jesus spent his entire life living with and caring for the poor and the marginalized. He was once himself an immigrant and a refugee. And he strongly opposed and repeatedly confronted the political, economic and religious elite of his day, people like you.
If you pursue the policies you embodied during your campaign, the supremacy of white people over people of color, the literal and figurative creation of walls of division and hostility between people and nations, your misogynistic attitude and practice toward women, your disdain for the poor, disabled and marginalized, your disregard for and ignorance about the environment and your encouragement of the use of violence toward those who disagree with you, if your policies as President continue down that path, I make this pledge of resistance to you today:
I will oppose you and stand against you every day of your presidency following the example of Jesus of Nazareth, seeking peace, pursuing justice and living nonviolently, including actions of nonviolent civil disobedience against you. That is my promise to you and I keep my promises.
Rev. Graylan Hagler, Washington, D.C.Rev. Graylan Hagler has a good response to navigating the waters of the call to “heal.” Worth reading.
“How can one be healed when the rhetoric targeted at one group or another attacked the humanity and very lives of those groups? I would like to be healed but the damage has already been done, and so how is the damage undone? The call for healing right now is as if you still have the disease or infirmity in your body but choose to ignore its presence and the damage that it is doing or has done. We cannot be healed while still being ravished by the destructive elements of the disease. We cannot be healed while the disease is still in the body. I cannot be healed right now because the one who brought the disease, exploited the disease, and advanced the disease has done nothing to eradicate the disease.
In scriptures, when people came with a sin offering, a thanksgiving offering or the first fruits offering it was without blemish and it was significant. It was such a significant offering that is meant something economically and psychologically to the offerer.
I have heard the rhetoric of Trump and I have to believe him at his word, and so since his words threatens me and many of my friends in their personhood and humanity I have to ask what will he bring to the altar of the public arena that there might be healing.”–Rev. Graylan Hagler, America Needs to be Healed!
During Advent, I’ll be posting some short Advent reflections, with the idea of sharing together our Advent journey.
In a 2012 CBN interview, Trump said fans often send him Bibles. He keeps every one of them “in a very nice place,” he said.
Joe Roos, Sojourners co-founder and Mennonite pastor, sent this letter below to Mr. Trump. I recommend that all individuals who are deeply disturbed by Mr. Trump’s white nationalist policies do the same. And that all houses of worship set up letter-writing campaigns with a similar letter tailored to their faith tradition.
Rose Marie Berger 