Showing posts with label Rainer Marie Rilke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rainer Marie Rilke. Show all posts

09 December 2021

"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", for one of the things I think we need consider during Advent as we prepare 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 prophet or as 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 situation 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 coming to see God sending anyone at all.

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 which allows a response which is truly worthy of us and the God who comes to 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!

Secondly, while at play (and anytime the question surfaces naturally) 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 would be a wonderful question to raise while 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 these 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 our 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? Allowing the serious yet joyful living of such questions seems to me to be part of the very essence of play.

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!