Annie Dillard said that Christians in worship are like children playing with a toy chemistry set and unknowingly mixing up a batch of TNT.* We come to our worship wearing our Sunday best; but Dillard recommends -- if we were to take seriously the business of our worship -- that we come wearing hard hats, prepared that God might actually do what we are calling upon God to accomplish in our liturgy. God might show up, and things might get topsy-turvy, turned upside-down -- we might be shaken to our core.
On the third Sunday of Advent, known colloquially as "stir up Sunday," we pray to God: come among us and "stir up your power." Are we sure about that? Have we come to terms with what this request might mean for us? Have we truly considered what might be required if God's power is stirred up in our midst?
At times God's work among us is gentle, slow, gradual. Like a leather tanner who steadily works a piece of hide to produce a soft suede, God can progressively transform us by degrees. Yet, at other times, God acts as a tenacious excavator who ignites the blasting caps of latent dynamite underneath our hard-packed souls. God stirs up God's power, we see a new reality, and we are forever changed. We can't unsee what we've seen. And so, the hard work of transformation begins. We must, by God's grace, "work the gap" between who we are now, and who we are called to become to fulfill God's purposes.**
During Advent we pray: God, prepare in us the room to welcome your Christ child. Who do we need to become, by God's grace, to make such "room" in our lives for this Christ?
The refugee is in our midst: hungry, hurting, vulnerable. They're on the run because the tenuous road is safer than the horrors of what was once called home. Who do we need to become, by God's grace, to make such "room" in our lives for this refugee? Is this refugee the Christ in our midst?*** Is the manner in which we welcome the refugee the manner by which we welcome the Christ? If welcoming Christ in relationship is our goal (telos), then the moral arch of the universe demands that we use welcoming means in all our relationships to live in integrity, and to accomplish our end.
And so we pray: Stir up your power, O Lord, that we, who are sorely hindered by our sins, might be transformed into who you would have us become. By your powerful grace enable us to welcome, and make room for you in our lives, in our neighborhoods, in our cities, in our states, in this nation. Such is our Advent prayer.
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* "On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does any-one have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? ...The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return." -- Annie Dillard,
Teaching a Stone to Talk
, Harper & Row, 1982.
** "Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? I will, with God's help. Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? I will, with God's help." -- Holy Baptism,
Book of Common Prayer
, 1979.
*** Icon of "Christ the Refugee"
