In the wilderness

Second Sunday of Advent, Ted Hicks, December 6, 2020

“We might not choose wildness.  Indeed, we might fear it.  We have probably even been warned against it by those who care enough to worry about us.  But breakthrough moments for us and for our world just might need an outbreak of wildness sometimes to jar us out of conventionality into the more that is possible.”

Ted’s invitation to a reflection for the Second Sunday in Advent

*** You may wish to light a Candle for Peace,

the second candle in a traditional Advent Wreath***

 


 

OPENING IN COMMUNION WITH THE ANCIENTS

From Psalm 85

In “Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness”, Nan C. Merrill, Continuum Press, 2002

Listen, O people, in the silent chapel of your heart;

and the Beloved will speak of peace to you,

to the hidden saints,

to all who turn their hearts to Love.

Surely new life is at hand for those who reverence Love;

O, that harmony might dwell among the nations.

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;

righteousness and peace will embrace one another.

Wisdom will spring up from the ground

and truth will look down from the sky.

Yes, the Eternal Giver will grant what is good,

and the lands will yield abundantly.

Mercy and compassion are Love’s way,

and will guide our footsteps upon the path of peace.

Selah

 

SCRIPTURE

The story of John the baptizer is integral to the story of Jesus in each of the Gospels. 

The passage below is Mark’s version – probably the oldest of the four Gospel accounts.

 

A SONG TO INVITE US INTO TODAY’S SCRIPTURE AND THEME

“Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord”,

by Patty Caproni & friends, from Godspell, Stephen Schwartz Composer

 

MARK 1:1-15

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.’”

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church:

Thanks be to God.

The passage from Isaiah quoted in Mark is also the Old Testament reading for this week from the Lectionary.

The full version, if you’d like to take time to read it as well, is Isaiah 40:1-11.

It is quite beautiful.  You might even take time to find a sung version from Handel’s Messiah, “Comfort Ye”.

 

TED’S REFLECTIONS

WILDING

When I was a middle-aged man, single again and doing my best to go dutifully about my business, something strange happened to me: I rounded a corner and crashed into love.  Picking myself up, I could feel something stirring to life within me – waking up, maybe, from a slumber induced by the blanket of conventionality that I was rather comfortably tucked into.  Passion and creativity flowed like lava from the eruption of what had been buried so deep for so long.  It was exhilarating, joyous, and more than a bit terrifying.

In such a state, I walked by a shop window in Osborne Village in Winnipeg one day and in it was a little figurine for sale.  It was a wild thing with feathers and claws and a long beak – a bird, a ritual dancer, an angel, a demon?  I am not sure what it was – probably it had no name except for what the artist who created it might have written on its tag.  Whatever it was, in that moment for me it was all the wildness within me wanting to burst free, to be named – not to tame it but to empower it.

That surge of love-induced wildness led me to making bold choices I never would have considered before.  It led to songs and poems that mostly got shredded though there are a couple I have kept.  It led to my daring to imagine the possibility of a wild god that was breaking out of the same conventionality I had been tucked into for so long.  And, by the way, it led me to becoming married again!

That hot and blazing fire has gentled somewhat over the years and now its glowing embers give off abiding, aromatic, and comforting warmth.  But had that experience of wildness not broken into my middle years, I don’t know what might have become of me and how I could possibly have faced up to the adventure of these, my elder years.

We might not choose wildness.  Indeed, we might fear it.  We have probably even been warned against it by those who care enough to worry about us.  But breakthrough moments for us and for our world just might need an outbreak of wildness sometimes to jar us out of conventionality into the more that is possible.

Centuries ago in a place called Judea something wild that way came.  It was called John and it lived in the wilderness and it was clothed in camel skins held in place by a leather belt and it survived by scavenging locusts and wild honey from the land and god knows where it spent the night.  In the day, it stood beside a river in the wilderness and shouted into the emptiness.   The wind carried its shouting and word spread.  People left their comfortable places and trekked off the beaten track to see such a strange thing for themselves.  Some stood back and laughed; some took notes and reported back to the authorities; but a few felt something stirring and awakening within them, so much so that they waded out into the river and let that wild thing push them under the water.  And when they resurfaced, they were changed.  They took some of that wildness home with them and it infected their families, their villages, their shops and their schools and their synagogues, and life was never the same again for those who had a brush with such wildness.

One who was drawn there to see, to listen, and to go under the water was a young man named Jesus.  He was a promising fellow from Nazareth with gifts that could have taken him pretty much anywhere those times and that place would have allowed, within respectable limits of course.  But instead of following the conventional path, he sought out that wildness and let it break into him and out from him.  And nothing in the world has been the same since.  A wild, creative, blazing love burst into the world because of his brush with wildness and with the wild god he discovered when he abandoned himself to the surging currents of that river.

Oh yes, forces of conventionality have tried ever since to squeeze all his wildness back into a box sealed tight with packing tape.   And those same forces have tried and tried again – with a great deal of success often – to tame the wild god he fell in love with in that river.  But once such wildness has been let loose, it can never be fully contained again.  That voice crying in the wilderness by a river or later from a hillside in Galilee is still carried on the wind to this day, to the very place you may be at this moment.

Love is calling.  All the clichés of convention that have masked as true religion are frantically running around trying to shut all the doors and windows to keep its sound from getting in. For the love of God, break a window if you have to so that wild voice can get through to you!    And if you hear of any wild ones shouting beside rivers or from mountaintops these days, don’t let anything stand in the way of your seeking them out.  The world, the church, our families, our neighbors, you and I are all desperately in need of an outbreak of wildness to reawaken us to love.  Or should that be an outbreak of love to reawaken us to wildness?  Either way, we live in times crying out for wildness and love.

We need to listen for voices from the edges. That is where hope lies.  If we continue to go down the same old roads to find answers to the pressing questions facing us – facing our communities, the church, our species, the planet – we will likely end up in the same old places.  Listen and look for outbreaks of wildness just off those beaten tracks.  Because I care, I do warn you to be discerning, for some of those wild ones may be fools or barking mad but some just may be prophets or even a saviour.

For Further Reflection:

  • What transformative experiences have changed the direction of your life?
  • Who would you name as the wild voices in our times that need to be heard?
  • How might the Covid-19 pandemic and global warming (or other current crises) be intrusions of wildness that shake up our conventionality and bring about a surge of creativity and transformation into our world?
  • Before we accept (or reject) Christ and Abba, his God,
  • how do we sort out whether it is the wild or tame versions being offered us?
  • Is there a wildness that is creative and a wildness that is destructive and, if so,
  • how do we tell the difference?

 

OUR DEDICATION

From “Guerillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle”, Ted Loder, LuraMedia, 1984

Holy One,

untamed

by the names

I give you,

in the silence

name me,

that I may know

who I am,

hear the truth

you have put into me,

trust the love

you have for me,

which you call me to live out

with my sisters and brothers

in your human family.

 

CONCLUDING BLESSING

“The Peace of Wild Things”, by Wendell Berry

from “Leading from Within: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Lead”

Edited by Sam Intrator and Megan Scribner

A Jossey-Bass publication, 2007

 

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives might be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light.  For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The peace of wild and loving things be with you.

Ted

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