The Heart of Leadership

 

For the past month at my church we’ve been doing a preaching series called, The Heart of Leadership.  Each week, the message focused on a different aspect of what I’ll call “Godly” or God-ordained leadership.   

It’s been quiet on the writing front for me lately.  However, particularly as we’re coming down the homestretch of a contentious—and extremely consequential—election cycle, it seemed like the content from this series was worth summarizing and sharing with a broader audience. 

 

The Table below gives an overview of the content of the entire five-week series.  The links in the second column connect to the YouTube stream of each service.  Since many readers likely do not want to listen to the whole church service, I included a timestamp beneath the link that lists the approximate start time of the sermon on the recording. I also created a narrative summary of each message, which is included after the table. I’ve tried to do the speaker (referenced herein as “Rev. Laurie”, a.k.a., my wife )  justice, but the content is based on the notes I took, which is my interpretation of what I heard.   

 

Table. The Heart of Leadership series overview. Characteristics of God-ordained leaders.

 

Date	Message Title Timestamp on YouTube	God-ordained Leaders...	Scripture(s)
9/29	Be Careful What You Ask For 49:20	Point people beyond themselves but to the things of God and protect the welfare of those under their care.	1 Samuel 8:1-9
10/6	True Vision 45:00	Help people “let go” of the past to free them and allow them to move toward the future God desires.	Numbers 14:1–10
10/13	Worthy of Trust 36:30	Prove themselves shrewd in dealing with the world and worthy of trust in small matters, so they can be entrusted with larger ones.	Luke 16:1–12
10/20	Building Connection 44:44	Connect with others and shepherd a diverse flock (community) unifying them around common goals for the common good of all.	John 10:2–4 Romans 16:7–8
10/27	Peacemaking 45:45	Guide people beyond lack of violence toward the presence of God—the source of ultimate peace.	Ephesians 4:1–6

 

The first message presented an example of someone who wasn’t an ideal leader—King Saul.  After the death of Joshua, a series of Judges ruled Israel, which is a loose confederacy of 12 tribes at this time.  (The book of Judges chronicles their stories.)  Samuel is the “Last Judge,” and he is now old.  His heirs are corrupt and deemed unworthy to lead.  Therefore, the question now before the people is: Who will be our next leader?   

 

Enter Saul—from the tribe of Benjamin—see 1 Samuel 9.  Now, this guy apparently was quite charismatic.  The Scriptures emphasize that he’s handsome.  No doubt he cuts quite a profile in his suit of armor.  He has all the qualities that humans think they want in a leader. And he’s clearly the Israelite people’s choice, which they make clear to Samuel when they say they want a King to rule over them—so they can be like the other nations that surround them—1 Samuel 8:5–6.  

 

The problem is that Saul isn’t God’s choice.  Nevertheless, God tells Samuel to give the people their wish and anoint Saul as King.  God says: They aren’t rejecting you, Samuel; they are rejecting me—1 Samuel 8:7.  If one continues reading the story told in 1 Samuel, one sees that Saul struggles as a leader.  In fact, God eventually commands Samuel to replace him—with King David. (Read the story of David’s anointing by Samuel in 1 Samuel 16:1–13.)  David has to battle the jealous, rejected, deposed King Saul before he can assert his rule.

 

Now, unlike Saul, David wasn’t the “obvious” choice to be a leader.  In fact, he’s the youngest of eight of Jesse’s sons.  His family considers it so unlikely that he would be the  “chosen one” that he isn’t even in the room initially when Samuel comes to visit.  He’s an afterthought, out tending the sheep.  But wonder of wonders, David, the youngest son, is in fact the one that God has chosen.  

 

As God reminds Samuel: The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart—1 Samuel 16:7. Although the stories in 1 and 2 Samuel reveal that David is far from perfect, he is also described as a man after God’s own heart—1 Samuel 13:14.  He possesses the inward qualities of leadership that are the best indicators of God-ordained leadership.[1]  

 

The takeaway from this message was that the people’s choice is not always God’s choice.  We must exercise discernment when choosing a leader—which requires us to look beyond exterior qualities to try and understand the inner life of the individual.  We should choose leaders who will rule less like Kings and more like Judges (shofets), who will point us beyond themselves to the things of God, and who will seek the welfare of those who put their trust in them. 

 

After setting the stage with King Saul, the following four weeks focused on qualities of God-ordained leaders.  We first considered how true leaders are visionaries who help people “lay down” whatever holds them back from moving toward the future.  We focused on a story from Numbers, where the Israelites, on the cusp of entering the Promised Land, learn (from spies sent to investigate) that the land they are entering was already occupied and that they will have to fight to take possession of the land.  Upon learning this, all the people became fearful and anxious. They want to “turn back” to Egypt…  

 

Well, not quite all the people… Moses and Aaron, both seasoned leaders, are troubled by the people’s outcry to “go back.”  They “fall on their face” before God to seek discernment.   Meanwhile, younger visionaries like Joshua, and Caleb speak against the prevailing sentiments of fear.  They insist that there is no turning back!  They assert that the land they are about to enter is “exceedingly good” and they implore the people to let go of their past and trust God to provide what they need to move forward into a new future. The people, however, remain skeptical.

 

In this message, Rev. Laurie also talked about the Jewish practice of tashlich, which involves casting breadcrumbs in water on Rosh Hashanah.  The brushing of breadcrumbs from one’s garments into water (where they dissolve) symbolizes a “laying down” of the sins that burden them as they prepare for the day of atonement on Yom Kippur.   She asked us to think about what we needed to let go of as individuals—and as a community—to allow us to move forward less encumbered into the future God has for us.  

 

The next week’s message focused on how leaders prove themselves to be trustworthy.  We considered the wisdom contained in Jesus’s parable of the dishonest manager.  Like the middle manager facing loss of his job in this story, a leader must be shrewd, wise to the ways of the world, and able to navigate the challenges of living faithfully in a world that bombards us with messages that tell us to focus on ourselves and turn away from God.  Even under intense pressure, God-ordained leaders trust in God’s unwavering reality.  (There are four lights!) They prove themselves “faithful in small things” every day, and over time, people entrust them with bigger and bigger roles and responsibilities.    

 

The following week, we discussed how we entrust leaders as connectors.  Good leaders are gatekeepers—but they don’t use the gate to regulate who’s in or who’s out of the flock.  No, in fact, as Jesus says of himself, they are the gate.   Rev. Laurie described how shepherds in the time of Jesus would literally lay their bodies in the entrance to the sheep pin to protect the flock from intruders. The shepherd protects those under his (or her) care.  They welcome members from multiple flocks into the sheep pin.  They connect with one another—and with other flocks—and celebrate the diversity of sheep within the sheep pin.  The flock knows the shepherd’s voice and can distinguish it from other voices that compete for their attention.  Good leaders celebrate their diverse flock and unify them behind common goals to work toward the common good of all.

 

In the final week of the series, the focus was on leaders as peacemakers.  In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “blessed are the peacemakers.”   What does it mean to be a “peacemaker” in a world where one news headline after another promotes the paucity of peace on our planet?  Well, here’s the secret: The media feeds on the absence of peace.  From their perspective, peace is boring—not newsworthy, and yet how deeply our souls long for it.  True leaders grasp this reality and guide followers  toward God’s peace—the “peace that was meant to be.”  They point us beyond the absence of violence to the very heart of God.  

 

Well, that’s my take on The Heart of Leadership series. Does one of these qualities stand out to you?   I don’t think this list of leadership qualities is exhaustive.  What other qualities do you look for in a God-ordained leader?  Maybe it’s a good topic to pray about before you vote on November 5.  Maybe you could find some friends and have a dialogue about this?   We can learn much from our conversations with others when we take time to genuinely listen to them.  

 

As Howard Thurman reminds us in The Sound of the Genuine: Now if I hear the sound of the genuine in me, and if you hear the sound of the genuine in you, it is possible for me to go down in me and come up in you. So that when I look at myself through your eyes having made that pilgrimage, I see in me what you see in me and the wall that separates and divides will disappear and we will become one because the sound of the genuine makes the same music.

 

Leadership is an important topic for all of us to think about.  The choices we make for those who lead us have lasting consequences.  I pray for discernment as we (in America) cast our votes on November 5, and as we move forward toward the “future with hope” that God promises to give us. 

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[1] For context, the last several paragraphs go beyond the scope of the first message, which focused on 1 Samuel 8:1–9.

Pentecost People

 This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday.  The passage typically read this day (Acts 2:1–11) describes a scene where the Holy Spirit made itself obvious to those Jews who had gathered for worship that day.  Gusts of wind, tongues of flame, people speaking and understanding languages in which they were not fluent.  Either they were full of the Spirit or as some suggested, they were drunk—Acts 2:12–13.  In his first recorded sermon, Peter, the former Jesus-denier, passionately lobbied for the former position—see Acts 2:14–36.

At his Ascension, Jesus had told his followers to wait in Jerusalem to receive power—Acts 1:1–11.  He explained that they would go forth and be his witnesses in all Judaea, Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth—Acts 1:8.  As Luke tells the story, Pentecost (Acts 2) was the beginning of the fulfillment of those words.  Like the dynamics of a thunderstorm, where updrafts push sinking air down and out, sometimes violently, the downburst of the Holy Spirit poured down and propelled the early followers of Jesus outward into the world.  

 

From that point, Luke describes how the disciples begin to experience persecution in Jerusalem, which necessitates them moving out—taking the message of Jesus with them as they relocate to various places around the Roman Empire.  Because this is the story we associate with the day of Pentecost, in church we often refer to it as the “birthday of the church” and frequently will welcome new members.

 

The Holy Spirit was loud and obvious on the day of Pentecost. But my experience is that in general, it is more subtle, more often speaking in a still small voice as opposed to loud ones and requiring attentiveness from us to hear and respond. 

 

When John the Baptist baptizes Jesus in the Jordan, the scripture tells us that as Jesus comes up out of the water, a voice speaks (God), a man is in the water (Jesus), and a dove descends (the Holy Spirit).  The three persons of the trinity are all present simultaneously. 

 

This is a mourning dove, which is the type of dove I typically hear and see when I run,
The dove that descended on Jesus is usually depicted as white.  

A dove is an interesting choice of birds to symbolize the Holy Spirit.   They are fairly common birds, but they are quite skittish and elusive by nature.  Sometimes, when I run through my neighborhood, I hear the flutter of their wings and may or may not see the bird itself.  Other times, I hear their distinctive mournful call in the trees nearby but I’m never quite sure where it originates.  Sometimes it seems close, other times further away.  If I want to find the source, I’d really have to search carefully.   Usually, I don’t take time to.

Similarly, the Holy Spirit is always near but elusive.  It flutters and dances about the periphery of our consciousness, making us aware of its presence, luring us toward it.  However, if we really want to follow it, at least at first, we’re going to have to concentrate on finding the Source.   With time, as with anything we practice, it becomes easier to connect and we can carry on our daily lives while simultaneously being in touch with the Spirit. 

 

The Eternal Promise book cover.

In his book, The Eternal Promise, in an essay called “Have You Ever Seen a Miracle,” quaker author Thomas Kelly describes this dual consciousness like this: 

“At one level of our mental life we can be talking with people, dealing with problems, carrying the burdens that our calling in time puts upon us.  But beneath all this occupation with time we can be in prayerful relation with the Eternal Goodness, quietly, serenely, joyfully surrendering ourselves and all that we are to [God].”

 

I must confess that when I read this, I think: “Sounds wonderful Tom,’’ quickly followed by, “Now try living mylife and doing it.”  But keep in mind Kelly wasn’t writing from a cloistered monastery.  He had been part of the Quaker movement in Germany, so he saw Nazism up close.  He first spoke these words in 1940, as the storm clouds of World War II were engulfing the world.  While he recognized the elusive quality of the Holy Spirit, he was equally adamant that it was possible for “ordinary people” to live their lives in “relationship with the Eternal Goodness.” In fact, given the state of the world, he felt it was all the more urgent that those who profess Christ as Lord be connected to the Eternal Goodness.  The prophetic voice behind these words resonates as we read them today when the future of our world seems as perilous and uncertain—if not more so—than it was in Kelly’s day.

 

Kelly used numerous metaphors for the Holy Spirit, but his favorite seems to be the Inner Light.  Much like the Dove in nature, this Inner Light within each of us is elusive and fleeting.  It is often hidden, nearly snuffed out entirely at times by the “worries of this life.”  Thus, we must intentionally work to rediscover and rekindle the Inner Light within us and then tend the flame regularly to keep it burning bright to guide our way in this world.  

 

UMC "Cross and Flame" Logo

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, also used a flame image when he spoke of the Holy Spirit—which is why the flame is part of the United Methodist Church’s logo along with the cross.  During a time of worship at Aldersgate, Wesley spoke of having “his heart strangely warmed.”  What began as “just another routine service” for Wesley turned into something more.  It wasn’t just a single moment in time anymore; it was an experience.  Wesley obviously believed in God and was being faithful to his call to ministry prior to going “rather reluctantly” to Aldersgate, but during that time of worship he seems to have experienced God in a way he hadn’t before.  The best evidence of this is what happens after he leaves Aldersgate.  From his preaching and writings, we see that Wesley went on to have a more “on fire”, Spirit-filled life from that point on.  Wesley would likely see it as an example of God’s threefold grace— prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying—all working together in his life.  Kelly would probably say Wesley truly experienced the Inner Light at Aldersgate, which propelled him forward to more effective ministry to others. Or, if you prefer our bird metaphor, he was changed by a firsthand encounter with the Dove.  Whatever metaphor you choose, the Holy Spirit was clearly at work in Wesley’s life. 

 

In a similar manner, the experience of the day of Pentecost clearly impacted the lives of the early followers of Jesus.  It made them more aware of the Spirit’s active presence than they had been before.  But if it had stopped there, would we be worshipping as communities of Christ followers more than two millennia later?  I doubt it.  

 

Whatever happened that day, from then on, the early followers of Christ seem to have expected it to happen again.  They were open to the possibility that the Spirit could—and would—show up wherever they were.  A quick read through Acts really makes this point clear.  Luke tells us that Peter, Paul (himself a post-Pentecost convert), and the other apostles did many great and miraculous things, but he is equally clear that the Source for all their achievements is God working through them via the Holy Spirit. 

 

Pentecost should be more than a day when we sing happy birthday to the church and wear red, rather, as it did for the early followers of Jesus, and for Wesley and Kelly, it should launch us out into a lifestyle of Holy-Spirit expectancy.  

 

We too should become more adept at noticing the movement of the Dove (or tending the Inner Light) in our midst.  We should expect God to show up not just “in church,” but each and every day in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.  Living with such an awareness would make those rare occasions when the Spirit decides to make itself more obvious during corporate worship—as it did on the day of Pentecost—even more impactful.  

 

As a Quaker, Kelly regularly experienced silent worship. He stresses the importance of the disciplines of silence and solitude for creating an environment where we can quiet the cacophony of our day-to-day lives enough to hear the spirit—or if you will, tend to our Inner Light.  He also emphasized that the point of experiencing Inner Light is not simply to have a touchy, feely private spiritual experience during worship.  No, it’s meant to empower us as we are sent forth from worship to meet the pressing needs of a suffering world.  

 

The Inner Light and the Outer Life are two sides of the same coin.  On this, the Methodist Wesley, the Quaker Kelly, and the early Apostles would’ve agreed.  

 

Wesley emphasized acts of piety (personal growth) being practiced alongside acts of service (helping others).   Both Wesley and Kelly firmly believed that we should be what I will call Pentecost People, who expect to see God do great things in and through us.  While we cannot and should not try to manufacture it—and Kelly is clear in The Eternal Promise that “successful” worship is not contingent on having an extraordinary influx of the Spirit—we should be open to it happening anytime we gather as a community to worship.  

 

So, what about it, Church?  Is this who we are?  Or is it who we aspire to be?  Saying it is a good start, but doing it is the harder part.  In the case of the early church, John Wesley, and Thomas Kelly, the proof of the Holy Spirit’s work inside them was made evident in what they accomplished for God and for the common good of this world.  May it be the same for the people in our church communities today.  Let it be said of us, that we were Pentecost People.  

Do Love and Ashes Mix?

 I write this on Ash Wednesday—the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent—which this year happens to coincide with the secular Valentine’s Day.  It can seem like an odd juxtaposition to have these two days occur simultaneously.  But I think when we give it some thought, love and ashes really do mix.   (I blogged about this in 2018—the last time these two events coincided.) 

One songwriter asks: “What is love?!” and begs their lover not to “hurt them no more.”  (I bet many of can think of some time we’ve heard this song; for me it’s a Saturday Night Live bit with two dudes at a nightclub doing everythingtogether in rhythm to the music.)  Another singer exclaims love is “more than a feeling,” while yet another dismisses it as a “second-hand emotion.”  One says, “love as a battleground,” while another sings that he’s “finally found the love of a lifetime, one that lasts my whole life through.” We could list volumes more contrasting perspectives offered in songs—to say nothing of poems and prose.  To say the least, it seems like there’s a range of opinions about what love is.  

 

In Christian contexts, it’s popular to say that love is a verb.  What we mean is that love implies action from both the lover and the beloved.  We who are the object of love don’t just passively receive it; we’re expected to actively respond to the lover’s advance, so that it becomes a two-way relationship. 

 

Love is a grace from God—and while that grace is free, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us that it’s not cheap. While it’s never something we earn, it’s always something worthy of our utmost effort to maintain.

 

Of course, when we talk about love, it’s not long before we think of 1 Corinthians 13.  It’s worth noting that Paul didn’t originally write this as wedding poetry.  He wrote it as guidelines for a fledgling community of Christ followers to live by as they sought to live lie Jesus, and so the text focuses more on the agape (love of God) and philos (love between siblings and friends) than on eros (romantic love).   But as today’s popular saying goes, in some ways, “love is love,” so it was a natural extension to apply it to eros as well.

 

You might want to take a look at “the Love Chapter” in your Bible as you read the rest of this article.  Notice how full it is of verbs.  Some say what love is; others say what love isn’t—but it’s all about action.  Consider verses 4–6 alone:

 

⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; it is not envious or arrogant or boastful ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 

There’s a lot of negatives in those two verses.  It’s like love itself an elusive quality that’s hard to capture in words, so Paul chose to “define it” more in terms of what it’s not. (You can tell he wasn’t married, right?)   On the other hand, people have done the same thing for centuries when they attempt to describe God.  It’s known as the via negativa (“the negative way”)—or apophatic theology. So, since Scripture tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), maybe the Bachelor Apostle was on to something when he chose to walk the via negativa when describing love. 

 

I looked up the antonyms for some of the words Paul says love isn’t.  When I did so, I quickly gained sympathy for Paul. There were many choices for each verb.  Finding just the right words to say, “what love is,” is challenging!  If the poets and songwriters struggle to express what love is, I guess it’s sort of arrogant of me to assume I could do any better. Nevertheless, I’m a writer, so I persisted.  For each negative quality, I picked a word or phrase that stood out to me on the list of antonyms.  I did keep one negative although I changed it for our context.  

 

If I were to frame 1 Corinthians 13:4–6 more positively maybe I’d say something like: 

 

Love is patient, love is kind.  Love is benevolent and humble, genuine and gracious. Love is not a narcissist; it is even-tempered and at peace with itself and others.  It puts up with much, always believing in and hoping for the best.  Love perseveres to the end.

 

I’m drawn to all the action words that describe love at this time because I’ve become keenly aware that—even after more than twenty years of marriage—it takes ongoing intentional effort from both partners to keep eros strong.  The same goes for other philos relationships we have with siblings and friends (I’m learning that with my own brother in recent days) and it certainly applies to agape. After all, what relationship is more worthy of our best effort than our relationship with God?   Still, it’s easy to settle into a passive acceptance of the way things are in our love relationships.  But true love never settles.  No, it always strives to find the “more excellent way.”  Even if things seem to be good… they can always get better.  

 

Ultimately eros and philos are echoes of agape—and agape is what is on display on Ash Wednesday and throughout the season of Lent and Holy Week. 

 

Through our spouses (eros) and through our family and friends (philos) we see through a mirror dimly what (and who) we will one day encounter face to face (agape).  If we are paying attention, we get opportunities daily to practice Jesus’ agape way of love through our human love relationships.  During Lent, we come face to face with our limitations.  We learn to stop denying them or feeling shame over them but rather to embrace them as part of us and even, after a while, to celebrate them, knowing they are the “shadow side” of who God created us to be.  In the shadow of the cross, and all that Christ accomplished there, we know we can always count on God’s strength and grace to be sufficient whenever we feel weak, unqualified, incompetent, ashamed, etc. 

 

So, while you won’t find Hallmark Cards to mark Ash Wednesday like you do for Valentine’s Day (as soon as Christmas is over!), I do think love and ashes really do belong together.   If we were to choose a Lenten “theme song” the classic hymn, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, might be a good choice.  Verse 3 speaks of how, at the cross,“sorrow and love flow mingled down.”  This song reminds us that the cross is where our Lenten journey is headed. (The season of Lent ends as Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday—when Jesus enters Jerusalem and begins his Last Week on Earth.)  Hopefully our Holy Week experience will be all the more powerful after we walk this Lenten journey mindful of where the journey will end.  Along the way, I pray that we all learn to embrace our true selves more fully (both individually and corporately) and the agape love that is always waiting to embrace us. 

Let God's Words Shape Your Story

 

Erratum: For those who may have read an earlier version of this article with footnote 2 about Nazareth.  While creative, it doesn't match Matthew's account, which states clearly that the Magi find the child in Bethlehem.  I confused my Gospel accounts.  It's in Luke that Mary and Joseph journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the birth in response to Caesar's edict.  Matthew includes no such journey.  

Each week during the Advent/Christmas season at Good Shepherd UMC, we sang a song called “Make Room.”  The core question the chorus asks us is: Is there room in your heart for God to write God’s story?   

 

We’ve pondered this question as we journeyed through Advent, considering the gifts of Presence and the themes of hope, peace, joy, and love.  Our journey culminated at the manger on Christmas Eve as we celebrated the coming of the Light of the World.  Echoing the sentiments of Mary, Joseph, and the other members of the Christmas Nativity cast, we’ve done our best to answer “yes” and open our hearts to what God wishes to write in our hearts in the coming year.  Like those archetypes from Scripture, we know that although we can come as we are, the choice to let God become (or keep being) a co-author of our story will inevitably impact our life and set us apart as we trade our dreams for God’s glory.

 

As we enter January, the liturgical calendar brings us to the end of the Christmas season, and the beginning of Epiphany. This six-week season invites us to deepen our understanding of what we are seeing as we contemplate the Christ Mystery.   

 

On the first Sunday of Epiphany, it is traditional to remember the visit of the Magi (or Wise Men) to the Christ child.  According to Matthew 2:1–12, these men from the east (the text never says there were only three—that’s a later church invention around the three gifts) follow the guiding light of a “star.” [1] As the story goes, they first visit King Herod’s palace in Jerusalem—figuring this to be the logical place to look for newborn nobility.  To their surprise, however, they don’t find the object of their quest at the palace. Herod feigns curiosity at this news. (Actually, he’s furious—intensely paranoid about a potential threat to his rule.) He sends the Magi to finish their journey and report back to him.  The Magi continue following the Star until they come to a humble home in Bethlehem, where they encounter Mary, Joseph, and their infant son.  Matthew describes the star standing still over the place where Jesus was.  It is here in this “place unexpected” that they have their epiphany: This infant is the object of their quest.  This is the king for whom they’ve searched.  Their response is to bow down and worship toddler Jesus. They offer the child and his parents gifts befitting not a peasant but a king: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 

 

The Wise Men continue to receive inspiration and direction even after they leave the Holy Family.  This time the plot device Matthew uses to guide them is a dream in which one of them (probably not all of them?) is warned not to return to Herod.   Apparently, they heed the message they received, as the text says they opt to return to their country via a different road. I’ve heard it said that once we encounter Christ, we too can never back the same way; I think it’s quite true.

 

Like the shepherds in Luke’s Christmas Story, Matthew presents us with unlikely first worshippers of the newborn (more likely toddler) king.  While the Jewish sages and astrologers in Herod’s court seem oblivious to the celestial signs of a birth in their backyard, a group of Gentile Magi from a far-away land are perceptive enough to notice and set out on a journey to find him.  

 

On Epiphany, one of our church’s traditions is to have each person choose a Star Word.  Some might say they are just “random words” written on star-shaped pieces of wood (or paper).  But the process is bathed in prayer.  The pastor prays as she writes them, and we add our prayers as we receive them.  We trust that God might give us a word that may have relevance in the year ahead.  If we are mindful and intentional, I think we might discover they are more than mere words on a star.  Maybe they are indeed God’s word to us.

 

In 2020, my word was gracious.  That was prophetic.  A few months later came the COVID pandemic and accompanying shutdown of life as we know it for many months.  It took a great deal of grace for me—and for all of us—to navigate those difficult days of involuntary isolation.  I had to learn to extend grace not just to others, but to myself.  I’m still learning those lessons.

 

In 2021, my word was soar.  It fit me then and still does now.  The great blue heron is a like a sprit animal for me.  It is rather clumsy when it walks around; it does not fly easily but when it does it is quite majestic to behold.  I am like that heron.  For various reasons, I have struggled to take flight in life.  I feel like God longs to see me soar—but I have to choose to do it, even if the takeoff is hard.

 

I don’t know what my word for 2022 was, but my 2023 word was shine.  It’s another word that speaks volumes to a person like me.  As someone who is much more comfortable blending in and going with the flow, a call to shine feels risky and vulnerable.  Honestly, I’ve struggled to do it.  I’m afraid if I do, I won’t measure up to what’s needed, and yet the call resonates deeply within me.  Howard Thurman would call it the sound of the genuine trying to rise up within me.  But I have to choose to give it voice, no matter what others say or do in response.  That’s where the rubber hits the road.

 

So, maybe they were just words on a star-shaped piece of wood, but they’ve had impact on me.  Sometimes I don’t realize how much until I sit down and think about them for an article like this one.  Words weave together to form stories—and stories combine to form the tapestry of our lives.  So, if we truly want to let God write God’s story on our hearts—individually and institutionally—in the year ahead, then words matter, and we would do well to pay attention to them. We’re especially wise to listen to God’s words to us—even if they come hand-written on the back of a wooden star.  

 

Perhaps, just as the Star in the Sky with its guiding light led the Magi’s journey long ago, our Star with its guiding word can frame our story for the year ahead.  May our journey lead to the same place it did for the Wise Men—to an eye-opening encounter with Christ.

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[1] If this event is factual, what exactly did these men see?  There’s much debate over this.  Some wonder if it could’ve been a star going nova, but growing consensus is that it’s more likely—albeit still an incomplete explanation—that they saw the planet Jupiter processing through the sign of Aries.

Advent: Anticipating A New Day

 

We have entered the season of Advent—the four Sundays leading up to Christmas.   (This is my favorite liturgical season.) The season begins in darkness, which we interrupt with a single point of light—a tiny candle flickering on our Advent wreath.  Over the next few weeks, the symbolic light on our altar builds as we prepare to welcome the Light of the World, about which the Gospel of John says: “The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it”—John 1:5. 

To truly appreciate Christmas, however, we need a season to prepare our hearts and minds—and the starting point of that season is darkness.  Advent gives us space to acknowledge the hardscrabble reality of our daily lives, to admit that this world can be a dark place at times.  We need the freedom to acknowledge that reality as opposed to glossing it over if we are to truly appreciate the gift of Immanuel—God’s Light coming into our darkness to dwell with us.  Church attendance tends to swell on Christmas Eve.  By then the Light has come, the baby is born and laid in a manger.  For that one night: “All is calm, all is bright.”  But journeying through Advent helps us better appreciate how badly we need this Light, and the kind of world into which that baby was born.  

At the time Jesus was born in Bethlehem (or Nazareth depending on which version of the story you read), the Roman Empire brutally oppressed the Jewish people.  Both Matthew and Luke portray the earthly parents of Jesus as refugees.  Luke’s birth narrative tells us that Mary and Joseph are forced to move late in Mary’s pregnancy in response a decree of a distant Emperor that: “all the world should be counted.”  Matthew’s version of the story puts the focus on the local puppet ruler of Judea, King Herod, whose paranoid fears run wild when he hears about a “newborn king” from some wandering Magi who “followed a star” so they could come and honor him.  When the wisemen defy Herod’s order to return to him and report their findings he flies into a rage and vows to eliminate any possible threat to his rule. He orders the slaughter of all boys under two years old.  (Yes, that’s infanticide right there in the Christmas Story!)  Matthew (writing to a primarily Jewish audience) envisions the Holy Family undergoing a kind of reverse-Exodus as they flee from the Promised Land to Egypt to escape King Herod’s treachery.   Laster, after the “evil king” dies, they return to Palestine.

In summary, the world into which Jesus is born is not a particularly safe world for a baby to be born.  It’s a very dark and violent place.  Does it sound like any other worlds you know?

  

Sam Gamgee at Osgiliath.  Credit: Tolkiengateway

Sam Gamgee watched as the world he knew came undone.   As he gazed out of the towers of Osgiliath, under siege by forces of the Dark Lord Sauron, the darkness, oppression, violence, and chaos was palpable.  Sam was the faithful companion of Frodo Baggins in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic, The Lord of the Rings.  He followed Frodo on his journey from their idyllic home in the Shire to Mount Doom—the place where the One Ring, which gave Sauron control, could be destroyed.  

Toward the end of the second movie, “The Two Towers,” Frodo and Sam are exhausted from their journey to date.  Frodo is losing hope that he will ever complete his task.  The burden of bearing the One Ring has nearly consumed him: "I can't do this, Sam," he says hopelessly to his companion. At that point, Sam stands up and looks out at the ruined city and the Nazgûl flying towards Mordor in the distance. Sam agrees: Rightfully, they shouldn’t even be here… but they are here and they must deal what is as opposed to what they wish was.  And then he offers up these inspiring words to his fatigued friend:

“It's like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. I know now folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something… That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for!”

Advent wreath with four candles
lit on the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Whether it’s the real world in which we live, or the worlds that we dream up in our imagination, we see repeated over and over that human nature is to love the darkness more than light (John 3:19), to revel in the violence, even to be seduced to normalize injustice and celebrate the chaos.  Like Sam’s exhortation to Frodo, God invites us to imagine a new day—and a new way of living. Advent is a season where we intentionally focus on this alternative story that God wishes to write upon our hearts.  But when the season begins, the sun has not yet risen on that new day.  In fact, it’s a pitch-black, moonless night outside and the new day seems like little more than a passing dream. Awoken from our slumber, we light a single flickering candle and place it on our altar to help us cling to our dream-vision and the hope it might one day become reality.

The theme of week one of Advent is hope, which hinges on us being able to envision the dawning of this new day—Jeremiah 29:11.  Paraphrasing the song lyric, “we believe in the sun, even when it’s not shining,” even when it’s the middle of the night and the sun won’t rise for many hours. Keep in mind the context of the scripture above.  The Prophet says the “future with hope” will come only after Israel’s best and brightest spend decades in exile in Babylonia.  We’re not speaking of a passive hope where the outcome is in doubt.  Rather, it’s active hope, where, as Gandhi would say it, we are to “be the change we want to see in the world.”   In other words, we don’t sit back and passively wait for God to bring about the future we dream of, we actively participate in doing our part to make it a reality.

Once we get grounded in God’s desired future—as opposed to our own—then the light of the new day begins to dawn, and we can begin to grapple with rethinking peace, joy, and love in the light of the new day we anticipate.  These are the themes of the next three weeks of Advent.  We realize that peace is not merely the absence of war and violence, but the reality that God present with us no matter where we go or what we do.  We understand that joy is not equated with happiness and or dependent on agreeable circumstances in our lives.  Like Paul we can learn the secret of being content (joyful) in all circumstances—Philippians 4:11–12.  Then, perhaps hardest of all to embrace is the greatest of all the gifts—love.  We learn ever so slowly to practice the agape love of God.  We live in a world that tends to love us if we are deemed worthy.  We’ve all been well schooled in conditional love, but, as Jedi Master Yoda might council us, “we must unlearn what we have learned.”  

At Good Shepherd UMC, we’re using a song during the Advent season called Make Room. A line from the chorus asks us: Is there room in your heart for God to write [God’s] Story?   It goes on to “warn” us that: 

You can come as you are
But it may set you apart
When you make room in your heart
And trade your dreams for [God’s] glory.

As Christ followers, we follow in the footsteps of the spiritual heroes described in Hebrews 11 who traded their dreams for God’s glory and let God write God’s story on their hearts.  Their great acts were inspired by confident hope in a good future—even when they had no visible evidence of that future—Hebrews 11:1. Just like the heroes in Sam’s “great stories,” the folk in Biblical stories had many chances to turn back, only they didn’t.  Why?  Because despite the darkness, injustice, and chaos they saw running rampant in their world, they were convinced that “there’s good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for!” 

Those heroes of our faith took their stand against the forces of darkness of their day as we do in ours. The author of Hebrews reminds us that many of them died never seeing the fullness of the future they worked toward—Hebrews 11:13. The same fate may await us; nevertheless, we are called to persevere as they did.  Like them, we acknowledge and confront the darkness, injustice, and chaos of our time but we also believe that the baby born in that manger is none other than the Messiah—the one who comes to save us.  As followers of Christ, we base our faith on the belief that the birth of Jesus was the vanguard of a new day for humanity.  We live out our lives in the time between the sunset of the old day and the sunrise of the new—but. like Sam, we live with confidence that “in the end it’s only a passing thing, this shadow; even darkness must pass.”  Eventually, the sunrise will come, and “when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer.”  That’s the basis of our hope for the future—despite the present darkness, injustice, and chaos in our world—and as Paul reminds us in Romans 5:5, that in the long-run, “hope does not disappoint.”  

As we journey toward the Light during this Advent season, may we “make room” for God to write God’s story in our heart, and allow God to weave the threads of our individual tales into the tapestry of One Story can rewrite all the other stories—God’s Story.  May our intentional focus on hope, peace, joy, and love, prepare our hearts to receive the gift of Immanuel—God with us—anew this year.  May the Familiar Stories of the season connect to your story in a new and transformative ways this Christmas.