Approaching Advent: "What did you come to see?" Letting the deep Questions Surface Within Us (Reprise)

As I look forward to [Advent] I am reflecting on [various] readings . . . and the last blog piece I reposted here on "play" (cf. On the Importance of Play) for one of the things I think we need to consider during Advent and the preparation of our minds and hearts for the new thing God will do among us. Last week the Gospel reading on Friday asked two blind men if they believed that Jesus could heal their blindness. This week the question being asked is implicit but it begins Matthew 11 and continues into the pericope we read on Friday, namely, [[What did you come to see?]]

Both JBap and Jesus have been rejected by the Jewish leadership; the Pharisees and Scribes, for instance, clearly believe these two are unsuitable to be considered chosen Ones of God, either as a prophet or as God's Messiah. The question posed to this leadership at the beginning of the chapter, [[What did you come to see?]] was also answered in two ways, focusing on two possibilities, "A reed shaking in the wind?]] --- were you looking for the expected thing when traveling out in the desert wadis, or [[A man dressed in fine clothes?]] (Were you looking for the unexpected thing when you went traveling in or to desert wadi's --- and even then, were you truly open to the unexpected)? The chapter begins with the implicit observation that neither the expected nor the unexpected that the pilgrims imagined resolved their deepest hunger or needs. They were not really open to the Prophet of Prophets whom we know as John the Baptizer. And Jesus? He definitely didn't fit their expectations. Apparently, they were not ready to repent (change their minds and hearts about) or seriously come to see anyone the God of surprises might send.

When Jesus speaks to them in Friday's readings then, he compares them to children playing in the market square with their playmates; they refuse to enter into the games. Some children play the flute for their playmates, but they refuse to dance and, when the first set of children wail (taking on the adult role of professional mourner), they refuse to grieve. Ostensibly, nothing will satisfy them. Nothing, from joy to grief seems to touch them deeply. They are closed, disobedient, or hardened of heart, and refuse to give God the attentive response God calls for.  Further down the chapter this refusal is underscored as Jesus compares the Jewish leadership of Corazon and Bethsaida to Sodom and finds them in even worse shape. So what can we take from these readings?

Advent is a time of preparation, a time when we ready ourselves to see God acting in our world in a new, special, and surprising way --- a way that comes to us from beyond anything we have ever imagined. Friday's Gospel reading encourages us to pay attention and do so in a way that allows a response that is truly worthy of us and the God who comes to dwell with us in smallness, powerlessness, and homelessness. What I have said about this before is: . . . it occurs to me that the people of  "this" generation to whom Jesus spoke were seen as incapable of or entirely resistant to being themselves in response to whatever "tune" God plays or sings. It is an almost inconceivably tragic portrait of who we have become when the best analogy to that is of children who themselves resist or have actually become incapable of play! In light of this, I want to make two suggestions folks might practice in this preparation time for the celebration of Jesus' nativity. 

Approaching the Rest of Advent:

First, take time to play --- take time for serious play in something both easy and absorbing. Jesus' example of children who are incapable of playing in ways that prepare them for adult roles in the Kingdom is a devastating one. Again, there is nothing more tragic than children who cannot play, who cannot enter into the games their playmates begin and encourage them in. The Jewish theologian Martin Buber once called play "the exaltation of the possible." Adults often have had the capacity for play bred right out of themselves and this has serious consequences for their capacity to be surprised by a God who is the ground and source of the (unimaginably) possible. We have been so conditioned to work incessantly (even at recreation) and to have the answer to everything (or to Google it immediately!), that we are often incapable of the play which allows the deep questions of our lives to surface. Therefore, the first thing we need to allow ourselves the freedom to do is play in a way, perhaps, we have not done in a while. Perhaps you paint or color, or love jigsaw puzzles; maybe you used to do photography. If so, time to take these up again --- gently, not obsessively, but with a quiet focus that increases attentiveness and openness to the new and unexpected. Play!! It's important and serious work, especially in preparing for the surprising coming of God!

Secondly, while at play ask yourself the question associated with this Friday's Gospel and one of those associated with Advent in general, namely, [[What am I looking for?]] (This, along with the corollary, [[What am I being asked (or allowed) to see?]] would be wonderful questions to allow to rise within us before peering at the world through the lens of a camera, for instance. We are so apt to become aware of the unexpected and hitherto unseen at such times.) God is coming to dwell amongst us, even within us, so what are we looking for? What are we yearning for, dreaming of? What do we need this Christmas to be in light of Christ's birth amongst us?? We have taken the time to travel into the "desert" of play (and yes, it is a desert where we may well meet God, our deepest selves, and demons!), we have relinquished control and allowed the eyes of our hearts to open gently and wide in this way. It is a perfect time to consciously "live the question" as Rainer Marie Rilke once reminded a young poet. We must allow ourselves to stop and explore the question, [[what did you come to see?]] Was it merely the expected or was it the unexpected? And how will we respond if and when the God of surprises comes? Imagine this!!! Prepare yourself!! Allowing the serious yet joyful living of such questions seems to me to be part of the very essence of play --- and also of Advent!

May we each open ourselves this Advent to become people who exalt in the possible, people who play and dream, and in this way are readied to partner with God in God's unimaginable enterprise of love!

Living and Responding to Jesus' Questions: the Key to Becoming the Persons we are Called to Be

 In reflecting on today's  Gospel what struck me was the relation between the two questions Jesus asked his followers. Remember he first asks, "Who do others say that I am?" and then, "And you, who do you say that I am?" Why does Jesus begin with what others are saying about him? A couple of thoughts come to mind. Maybe Jesus knows it is easier to speak of what others are saying than to speak of what is on our own minds and in our own hearts. Or maybe Jesus is leading his disciples slowly to the answer he wants them to give; maybe he wants them to think about what others are saying since the others are those with and to whom the disciples will be called to minister.  Given the disciples' uneven track record in getting things right, maybe Jesus is trying to give them a head start on the real answer! There are any number of possible answers. But today, I thought I saw Jesus moving his students away from the basis for much of who we think we are (not to mention who we think Jesus is!) and what we do in our lives, namely, what others think and value, and then giving these disciples a chance to discover and claim what they really think and feel themselves.

And why isn't it enough to answer with these others? After all, they are answering in terms of their Tradition, and the Tradition of Jesus and his disciples as well!   But what Jesus knows is that in him God is doing something new, something unprecedented, something that will tear that Tradition apart. In some ways, Jesus', "And you, who do you say that I am?" is a warning to his disciples. Jesus asks them to get in touch with all of the ways his life moves them, all the ways he resonates with their Tradition, all the ways he is what they expected and hoped for. At the same time, Jesus asks his disciples to bring to the front of their minds and hearts all the ways he surprises or disappoints them, all the ways he doesn't fit the Traditional categories and orthodoxy, all the times the others (and perhaps the disciples themselves) have called him a drunkard, or crazy, or a blasphemer. Only from this point can they really speak about the One God has sent to do something so insanely, inconceivably new. Only from this point can Jesus begin to teach them about what God's plan really has in store for him and for them.

And so, Jesus takes Peter's confession of Jesus as the Messiah and begins to reshape it out of all recognizability, all Jewish acceptability, and frankly out of any known religious shape at all! And for Peter, it is simply a bridge too far! Nothing in his Religious Tradition or in any other in the Roman world he inhabits has prepared him for a suffering Messiah or (and Peter has not even glimpsed this yet) an executed criminal who allows an utterly transcendent God to take death into himself and not be destroyed by it. Nothing in Peter's experience prepares him for a God who wills so strongly to be Emmanuel (God-with-us), that he will take sin and death into himself and eventually create a new heaven and new earth where sin and death have been destroyed through the faithfulness and work of a condemned and crucified Messiah.

But for all this to happen, Jesus must move us from the place of canned answers (no matter how correct they are) and "fitting in", to the place of an open mind and heart rooted in personal truth, and then to a faithful mind and heart that are courageous enough to travel with God to the unexpected and even the unacceptable place so that that God may do something insanely new in and with our world.  And in today's Gospel pericope, that is what Jesus is doing with his disciples, not because he does not value orthodoxy, and not because he promotes individualism and heresy, but because the God he serves so well wills to do something absolutely explosively, counterculturally new. 

For us, the first step in this journey of faith means breaking away from what others tell us to think and feel. This is part of reclaiming our own minds and hearts for God, the first step in dying to self so that we might live for and from God. It is a step we must make over and over again in a world that so glibly tells us what to think and eat and wear, and what medicines to ask our doctors about or cars to drive. Or what people we should regard --- and those we should not! The hardest part of this journey is coming to know who we really are while letting go of what is false, what is the result of our enmeshment in what monastic and eremitic life calls "the world" --- and this, of course, is what Jesus' second question to his disciples is all about, not ripping them away from the truth of their Tradition, but freeing them from inauthentic enmeshment so that God may do something new with that truth as it truly lives in them.

Jesus captures all of this with his reminder to Peter, [[You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.]] and then to everyone, [[Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.]] When I hear Jesus' questions in today's Gospel, I recognize they do what all Jesus's questions do; they call us beyond being the people the world says we are and must be, and open the way to be who we are truly called to be. For a hermit committed to living a stricter separation from the world, I also recognize that today's Gospel can call the hermit from unhealthy enmeshment in "the world", and empower the kind of freedom that allows God to do something unimaginably new!! The key to stricter separation from the world for hermits or for anyone else, the key to what today's readings call, "walking before the Lord in the land of the living", is in honestly living and answering Jesus' two questions every day of our lives: "Who do others say that I am?" and you, "Who do YOU say that I am?"

"What did you come to see?" Letting the deep Questions Surface Within Us

As I look forward to the service for Friday (we will have a  Liturgy of the Word with Communion service) I am reflecting on the readings of the day and the last blog piece I reposted here on "play" regarding one of the things I think we need to consider during Advent and preparing our minds and hearts for the new thing God will do among us. Last week the Gospel reading on Friday asked two blind men if they believed that Jesus could heal their blindness. This week the question being asked is implicit but it begins Matthew 11 and continues into the pericope we read on Friday, namely, [[What did you come to see?]]

Both JBap and Jesus have been rejected by the Jewish leadership; they clearly believe these two are unsuitable to be considered the chosen Ones of God, either as a prophet or as God's Messiah. The question posed to them at the beginning of the chapter, [[What did you come to see?]] was also answered in two ways, focusing on two possibilities, "A reed shaking in the wind?]] --- were you looking for the expected thing when traveling out in the desert wadis, or [[A man dressed in fine clothes?]] (were you looking for the unexpected thing when you went traveling in or to desert wadi's --- and even then, were you truly open to the unexpected)? The chapter begins with the implicit observation that neither the expected nor the unexpected the pilgrims imagined resolved their deepest hungers or needs. They were not really open to the Prophet of Prophets whom we know as John the Baptizer. And Jesus? He definitely didn't fit their expectations. Apparently, they were not ready to repent or seriously come to see anyone the God of surprises might send.

When Jesus speaks to them in Friday's readings then, he compares them to children playing in the market square with their playmates; they refuse to enter into the games. Some children play the flute for their playmates, but they refuse to dance and, when the first set of children wail (taking on the adult role of professional mourner), they refuse to grieve.  Ostensibly, nothing will satisfy them. Nothing, from joy to grief seems to touch them deeply. They are closed, disobedient, or hardened of heart, and refuse to give God the attentive response God calls for.  Further down the chapter this refusal is underscored as Jesus compares the Jewish leadership of Corazon and Bethsaida to Sodom and finds them in even worse shape. So what can we take from these readings?

Advent is a time of preparation, a time when we ready ourselves to see God acting in our world in a new, special, and surprising way --- a way that comes to us from beyond anything we have ever imagined. Friday's Gospel reading encourages us to pay attention and do so in a way that allows a response that is truly worthy of us and the God who comes to dwell with us in smallness, powerlessness, and homelessness. What I have said about this before is: . . . it occurs to me that the people of  "this" generation to whom Jesus spoke were seen as incapable of or entirely resistant to being themselves in response to whatever "tune" God plays or sings. It is an almost inconceivably tragic portrait of who we have become when the best analogy to that is of children who themselves resist or have actually become incapable of play! In light of this, I want to make two suggestions folks might practice in this preparation time for the celebration of Jesus' nativity. 

Approaching the Rest of Advent:

First, take time to play --- take time for serious play in something both easy and absorbing. Jesus' example of children who are incapable of playing in ways that prepare them for adult roles in the Kingdom is a devastating one. Again, there is nothing more tragic than children who cannot play, who cannot enter into the games their playmates begin and encourage them in. The Jewish theologian Martin Buber once called play "the exaltation of the possible." Adults often have had the capacity for play bred right out of themselves and this has serious consequences for their capacity to be surprised by a God who is the ground and source of the (unimaginably) possible. We have been so conditioned to work incessantly (even at recreation) and to have the answer to everything (or to Google it immediately!), that we are often incapable of the play which allows the deep questions of our lives to surface. Therefore, the first thing we need to allow ourselves the freedom to do is play in a way, perhaps, we have not done in a while. Perhaps you paint or color, or love jigsaw puzzles; maybe you used to do photography. If so, time to take these up again --- gently, not obsessively, but with a quiet focus that increases attentiveness and openness to the new and unexpected. Play!! It's important and serious work, especially in preparing for the surprising coming of God!

Secondly, while at play ask yourself the question associated with this Friday's Gospel and one of those associated with Advent in general, namely, [[What am I looking for?]] (This, along with the corollary, [[What am I being asked (or allowed) to see?]] would be wonderful questions to allow to rise within us before peering at the world through the lens of a camera, for instance. We are so apt to become aware of the unexpected and hitherto unseen at such times.) God is coming to dwell amongst us, even within us, so what are we looking for? What are we yearning for, dreaming of? What do we need this Christmas to be in light of Christ's birth amongst us?? We have taken the time to travel into the "desert" of play (and yes, it is a desert where we ourselves, God, and demons may be met!), we have relinquished control and allowed the eyes of our hearts to open gently and wide in this way. It is a perfect time to consciously "live the question" as Rainer Marie Rilke once reminded a young poet. We must allow ourselves to stop and explore the question, [[what did you come to see?]] Was it merely the expected or was it the unexpected? And how will we respond if and when the God of surprises comes? Imagine this!!! Prepare yourself!! Allowing the serious yet joyful living of such questions seems to me to be part of the very essence of play --- and also of Advent!

May we each open ourselves this Advent to become people who exalt in the possible, people who play and dream, and in this way are readied to partner with God in God's unimaginable enterprise of love!