Last night, many children around the world put out their shoes in the hallway, stuffed with carrots for the reindeer, in hopes that this morning they would awaken to find that the carrots were gone and Old St. Nick had filled their shoes with luscious chocolates, sweet treats, and fresh fruit.
The crew from SolDel is here, putting up the lights to frame our wee cottage on one of the estuaries of the Delmarva Peninsula. It is the generous gift of a dear friend who heard me say that what I really wanted for Christmas this very dark and foreboding year was more light.
How blessed am I?
As I walk The Way of Mary, I am overwhelmed by the many manifestations of generosity in this Season of Advent, which begins with her prodigal (meaning, free and wastefully extravagant) gift of "Yes."
I'm preaching this Sunday so I've been spending time with the lectionary lessons for Advent II. I've discovered, once again, that Advent, more than any other season, is absolutely thick with prophets.
This particular liturgical year in Advent, we’ll hear from seven of them. This Sunday alone, we hear from Baruch (we could have also heard from Malachi), Zechariah, Isaiah, and John the Baptist.
As I've marinated myself in the message of the prophets, I best love the message of Baruch. No sackcloth and ashes for him. No groveling and orders for Repentance. Here's what Baruch says:
“Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting; for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven.”
Even Isaiah says, "Prepare!" Not "Repent!" That's for Lent. Advent is not a mini-Lent. And, while our souls need Lent, we are also desperate for the Season of Advent, which is about preparing for the amazing, prodigal, free, extravagantly wasteful gift of love.
I want to encourage you to google "The Burglar's Christmas" by Elizabeth Seymour - the pseudonym of Pulitzer Prize winning author, Willa Carther. It's a short story which is available for free on the internet.
It's a modern take on the ancient biblical story of the Prodigal Son, which is more aptly named The Prodigal Father. This story is more aptly named The Prodigal Mother.
Here's the line that slays me every time. After the son, William, returns home (well, in a manner of speaking), his mother wants him to tell her everything – where he had been, what he had done. She wants him to spare no detail of the truth.
He says to his mother, "I wonder if you know how much you pardon?"
"O, my poor boy,” she says, “much or little, what does it matter?”
And then she says to William, something I think we all need to hear. “Have you wandered so far and paid such a bitter price for knowledge and not yet learned that love has nothing to do with pardon or forgiveness, that it only loves, and loves—and loves?”
That's exactly the kind of generosity the world needs right now. Perhaps it always has but it seems keenly so, now.
It's the generosity that doesn't keep score. The generosity that isn't about "pay to play". Tit for tat. The generosity that holds no conditions or limits amount. The generosity that blots out the impulse for retribution and revenge.
Perhaps for one short season – the shortest of them all – we might allow ourselves to soak – drench – saturate – marinate – ourselves in the reality of the prodigal, unconditional, incarnational love of God. Let that love sink into our bodies so it becomes incarnate in us; that we can at least try to do better at loving ourselves and others as God loves us.
God knows we need it. Some of us appear to be starved for it.
Winter’s coming. And, with it a season of particular darkness that threatens to snuff out The Light. The Hope. The Joy.
Maybe you could start with something small - like offer a handful
(or shoe full) of sweet chocolate or candy or fruit to a child or the child in others.
Or, smaller still, maybe even take the time to look into the eyes of the person you meet in the grocery store or out Christmas shopping and say, "Hello!" Or, "Good morning." Or, "Merry Christmas." or "Happy Holidays."
It just might be the only little something sweet that person experiences all day.
Or, maybe you could do what another friend did. His heart was so filled with gratitude for the return of his health that he went out and bought lunch and hot coffee for a local encampment of people who had lost their homes. Then, he sat down and ate with them, heard some of their stories, and told them they hadn't been forgotten.
Gratitude, in my experience, always leads to acts of generosity. This is a good time - perhaps, there has never been a better time - to practice finding the gratitude in your heart that will lead to acts of generosity.
That's the way mangers are built in our hearts. They are created on the frame of gratitude and filled with the nourishment of generosity.
Into such a manger the Christ child will come and make a bed, that you, too, might find and then give away love that is unconditional, free, incarnational, prodigal, lavish, and wasteful.
With those little mangers everywhere, we will create The Beloved Community, there to find the hope to return to Eden once again.
Like Mary, generosity starts by being prodigal enough to say "Yes," when you don't know exactly what you are getting yourself into, but you take a risk for Love.
I hope something good happens to you today.
Bom dia.
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