The Mystery is All Around You

December 11, 2011
Advent 3, Year B
Isaiah 61:1-3

I know I mention the stories from our Godly Play Sunday School a lot in my sermons, but it really has been a great treasure trove of theology for me. Maybe it’s like that book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, where Robert Fulghum shows how kindergarten laid the foundation for everything that is essential for us as adults (sharing, working well with others, cleaning up our own mess, being patient, and my personal favorite “being aware of wonder”). Sometimes the simple but well told stories, and the quiet beautiful metaphors are just what I need to think about something that I feel like I already know in a new way.

So I’m going to share with you my newest favorite piece of theology from Godly Play by showing you something that the kids do each week of Advent.

During Advent, we are getting ready to enter the mystery of Christmas by lighting candles. Each week, we have a chance to become part of the story. The first candle is for the prophets. They tell us to “Stop. Watch. Pay attention. Something incredible is going to happen in Bethlehem.” The second candle is for the Holy Family – pregnant Mary and Joseph. We are going with them on their journey to Bethlehem. The third candle is for the shepherds. We are with them when they are frightened by that great light in the sky and hear the angels sing their tidings of good news. The fourth candle will be for the wise magi. Along with them, we will begin to follow that wild star in the sky as we make our way to see the mystery for ourselves. Each week, the light grows as we come just a little closer to Christmas, when finally we reach Bethlehem and meet the child who is the mystery we’ve been preparing ourselves for. And so each week, we stop and we enjoy the light.

But then comes the best part. (For me, anyway.) We end the story by “changing the light.” At first, you see, the light is all in one place. But then we can see the light change to be in every place. If you’re sitting up front, you can see the smoke swirling in circles, getting thinner and thinner, spreading out to fill up the whole room. Now you can’t see it anymore, but the light isn’t gone – it’s just changed. This room, the whole world, is full of the light of the prophets, the Holy family, the shepherds and the magi. Anywhere you go, you can come close to the light. No matter where you are, that mystery is all around you.

The mystery is all around you.
Maybe Advent is really a time to be more attentive to what has actually been there all along.

I’ve been reading Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle and just came to the part where she is talking about how artists in the moment of creation are actually in tune with that great mystery which lies underneath our comings and goings and busy-ness. She quotes George Eliot, who wrote: “If we had a keen vision of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of the roar which lies on the other side of silence.”

L’Engle thinks that children naturally seem to understand this better, and I think she’s right. We adults get so wrapped up in our to-do lists, so worried about doing things correctly, that we have trouble letting go enough to really listen and look for what is all around us.

Of course it isn’t just the children or the artists who are capable of this, and yet they can help us remember how to do it. Recently I’ve been taking my youngest daughter, Maya, to Art at the Center for a “young explorers” class. Kathryn Coneway, who owns and runs the studio, sets up balls of clay on the tables with things like popsicle sticks or thread spools for the kids to experiment with. And the long art tables are set with invitingly blank sheets of paper along with brushes and paint. (I get more excited that the kids when she hands around the sparkly silver paint that makes our creations shine.) And there are light tables with brilliant colored plexiglass to build and stack with. The class isn’t for me, supposedly, and yet it has become my happy place. I follow Maya around as she guides me from place to place, poking and prodding the clay, sweeping swirls of color onto the page, stacking up rainbows of plexiglass. She has no agenda, no expected result, nothing to prove to anyone. She is absolutely in the moment. And so am I. On Thursday mornings from 9:30 until 10:30, I am gradually rediscovering and reclaiming the creativity I rejoiced in before lines and rules and order started to prevail. At least for that one hour a week, I have a glimpse into the mystery that we are walking towards, or maybe running headlong towards, this Advent.

And during that hour, I feel like I can understand just a little better what Paul means when he tells the Thessalonians (and us) this morning to “rejoice always” and “pray without ceasing.” We tend to think of prayer as being about what we do in church or maybe silent meditation by candlelight, and that is prayer, of course; but this “pray without ceasing” business is much broader and more all-encompassing than that. There was a French monk named Brother Lawrence who wrote about how he found God’s presence even when he was surrounded by noise and clatter washing pots and pans in the monastery kitchen. Nothing is too mundane for God. I was in a Bible study once with a woman who shared how her early morning routine of grinding and making coffee was where she most reliably felt God’s presence. She said it was as if during those moments she was offering up her day to God and God was blessing whatever might lie ahead. I think it would be hard for us to find anything that couldn’t be turned into a place where we encounter the mystery of God if we slow down and make room for it.

And so, in this third week of Advent, as our pink candle assures us that we have turned the corner towards Christmas, I challenge you (and myself) to stop and pay attention. Not just to the incredible thing that is about to happen in Bethlehem, but to the seemingly un-incredible things that are happening all around you. Watch for the grass growing. Listen to the squirrel’s heart beating. Know yourself to be in the presence of the mystery that was, as is, and is to come.

Amen.