Advent Practices
Last Sunday we kicked off a new liturgical year, which means we have officially entered the season of Advent. This is a season where we dwell on hope, waiting, expectation, and preparation to once again welcome the Christ child. During Advent, we learn to wait for the incarnation of God that we celebrate on Christmas day, but our waiting is not meant to be passive. We watch for signs. We notice the ways God is already working in our world (perhaps using all of our senses). And we prepare our lives to make room for Christ to dwell with us. During Lent, one of the other major seasons of the Church calendar, a lot of emphasis is put on practices and disciplines, but I don’t think we spend much time talking about these sorts of things during Advent even though both seasons call us to practices of deep awareness of
The 2nd and 2000th coming of Christ
“And may the Holy One make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” – – 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 This Sunday begins Advent, the first day of the Christian year. Happy new year. One of the four lectionary readings is from 1 Thessalonians, a letter Paul wrote to a small group of believers in the port city of Thessalonica, Roman capital of the province of Macedonia. Scholars have reached a broad consensus that of all the literature that now makes up our New Testament, 1 Thessalonians was written first. It’s an odd thought. Before the Gospels were circulating, telling stories about Jesus, Paul was writing letters to these
Journey Forward
This past decade has been a divisive time within Mennonite Church USA, the denomination of which we are a part. MC USA was a new thing in 2002, formed as a merger of two historically distinct Mennonite groups. Differences among congregations and conferences emerged, largely focused on affirmation (or not) of LGBTQ persons. But these disagreements revealed fundamental differences in understandings of the sacred, interpretation of scripture, and whether authority for spiritual discernment lies primarily in the congregation or at the national level. We are now quite a bit smaller (less than 70,000 baptized members) than we were when we merged in 2002 (about 120,000 members). With the loss of many conservative congregations, and under new executive leadership, the denomination is now in the process of articulating a new identity and set of priorities. This is being called the “Journey Forward” process. A key document for this is a one page distillation called
Do You Sense What I Sense?
The Advent and Christmas seasons are quickly approaching, and this year we will be focusing our worship services around the theme “Do You Sense What I Sense?” This is a play on the familiar song, “Do You Hear What I Hear?”, and while the lyrics to that song ask about hearing and seeing the signs of Christ’s coming, starting on December 2nd, our worship services will explore how we can pay attention to “God with us” with all of our senses. Advent is a time of preparation, expectation, and watchfulness as we await the coming of God in the birth of Jesus. Like John the Baptizer in the wilderness, we “prepare the way of the Lord” by slowing down and paying attention to the signs that announce God’s presence. Every year we are reminded during Advent that the time of waiting can be just as holy as the time of
Justice is restorative
Congregations and pastors can’t endorse candidates, but we can promote ballot issues. I’m writing to express my strong support of Issue 1: The Neighborhood Safety, Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Amendment. One of the recent book studies during Adult Christian Education at CMC was Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. She names mass incarceration as the “new” form of racialized law enforcement, and traces this back to the War on Drugs, begun in the early 70’s. Currently in Ohio, there are around 50,000 people behind bars, many for minor drug offenses, putting our prisons at 132% capacity, and costing Ohio taxpayers $26,000 per incarcerated person per year. There has to be another way. Mennonite ethicists emphasize that true justice is restorative, and not just punitive. At its heart, Issue 1 seeks to shift public resources toward drug treatment and rehabilitation, and away from incarceration – in order to restore lives. It
