Despite the Whatevers--Advent Still Comes

Growing up I don’t think I ever heard the word Advent. Baptists came to this liturgical season late. In reaction to Catholics we had no crosses in our churches. We had no candles on the table up front. We wore no robes—choir and certainly no Preacher. Processionals—well, no. There was no candlelight communion. We were busy wrapping presents at home.

But somewhere along my road I discovered Advent. It meant getting ready. It meant arrival on the day of days—Christmas. It meant opening your eyes and seeing. It meant reading the story of the wise and foolish virgins and the admonition: Watch. Unlike the Catholics and Episcopalians we began singing Christmas carols on the first Sunday of Advent. In time Advent became one of my favorite seasons. I love the music, the color, the bathrobe dramas. Everything. 

THEN

So in my first church off the main highway in Western, Kentucky I thought it was time to introduce Advent to our little church. When they finally realized this word did not belong to the Catholics they began to settle down. They tolerated their young preacher and some of his new ways. Our rural church was drab. And down front was the Warm Morning Heater that kept us too hot or shivering. So that first Christmas I decided to deal with some of the drabness by introducing our first Advent Christmas wreath. I put five candles in place and decorated it a little with greenery. I instructed the all-male Deacons on the meaning of the wreath and the five candles. And I chose one of our Deacons to light that first candle on Sunday. We began that service with Miss Jenny playing the Hammond organ. The designated Deacon came forward took out his cigarette lighter and lighted not one but all five of the candles! Five.

Despite my mortification Christmas came. Maybe we celebrated Jesus’ coming not one day but five special Sundays. The candles did not deter my parishioners. They came every Advent Sunday and sat in their chosen seats and stared at the pretty candles. On Sundays there were a trickle of divorcees, an unmarried pregnant girl, and old couple dealing with the ravages of old age. And here and there were the ones who had lost somebody.  And farmers worried about the weather and their tobacco crops in the spring. And there were the squirming children who just couldn’t wait for Christmas morning. I learned a powerful message that season. The baby comes despite our screwups and all our human frailties. 

NOW

And this year I watch that first candle being lighted by a little girl whose Daddy held her shoulder high. For Jesus has come a zillion times to me and people inside and outside churches the world over. Those who never darkened the church door. The drunks and the whores and those crippled with drugs. The homeless sleeping in card board boxes.This Jesus reaches across the enormous political divides.  And the grievers are not left out. Or the refugees and the power-mad politicians. But more—those sitting in our pews last Sunday well-dressed need what we all need. A message as old as time. Jesus comes. And so next Sunday we light the second candle and we will remember. No wonder we call it Advent.

 

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.logspot.com

Let's Not Call Thanksgiving Off

Let’s not call Thanksgiving off. Knee-deep in masks and funerals and sickness and grief piled on top of grief—we did not cancel Thanksgiving. We’ve all got a lot on our plates. And looking back on my own journey Thanksgiving came whether I was depressed or had the blahs or diverted myself with a book, TV, or Netflix or the ball game. And Thanksgiving came anyway. Some times I totally missed it.

I picked up a little book years ago. Interesting title I thought. 365 Thank Yous by someone I had never heard of, John Kralik. He opens up his own heart and tells a powerful story. A lawyer with a passel of clients that just did not pay. He had run out of money. He was struggling through a painful second divorce. Distant from his kids. Living in a tiny apartment cold in winter and hot in summer. He was 40 pounds overweight and his new girlfriend had just ditched him. His dearest life dreams seemed to have slipped away. 

Trudging alone on a mountains trail he suddenly thought of the thank you note his ex-girlfriend had sent him thanking him for his Christmas gift. It made his day.  So still on that path he thought what if I wrote a couple of thank you notes to people who have made a difference to me along the way.

So he started to write two or three thank you notes. He mused: What if I wrote a note every day to somebody out there who helped him along? After he started he decided to try to write a thank you note every day of the year. He said it took him longer than a year to write 365 notes—but finally he finished. Guess what? Thanksgiving began to come into this man in all his desperation. Thinking and thanking more people than he imagined had changed his life. Thanksgiving came and he wrote this book. 

He said he just wrote simple notes not too long. He wrote to people he had not thought about in years. And gratitude changed his life. Not all happy endings for all his troubles but he was turned inside out. And Thanksgiving came.

I love the Neil Young song when he sings:

“One of these days, I’m going to sit

down and write a long letter

To all the good friends I’ve known

I’m going to try and thank them all for

the good times together

Though so apart we’ve grown…

One of these days, one of these days

One of these days it won’t be 

long, it won’t be long.”

Turn off the TV. Give yourself a time out. Maybe not Thanksgiving Day but maybe the next day or the next. But some time to sit and remember them and how empty the days might have been without them. Let’s not call Thanksgiving off. Who knows what it just might do to us all?

--RogerLovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com 

Happy Birthday, Natalie

 

Happy Birthday Granddaughter

Maybe Manna is What We need Most Today

--photo courtesy of Matthew Lovette

I am sure you are sitting on the edge of your seats when you read the sermon title: Manna. Manna? Yeah, What Is It? Maybe it is not as strange as you thought.

The Promise

The story of this Manna comes out the book of Exodus. You know that story. This was the journey that moved God’s people from slavery to freedom. It was a winding road that led from Egypt and slavery across the Red Sea to what they thought would be the Promised Land. But there was a catch. The stragglers  looked out at sand and desert and heat and cold and wondered: Did God really say this was the Promised Land? Not yet. But they would find their journey through the desert until they made it finally to the Promised Land—but. It took them 40 years to travel the distance of 400 miles. Some wonderful stories come out of that journey. And somenot so good. 

After they traveled quite a ways—they began to murmur. What food they had was running out and there was little water in that desert. Gasoline was so high, the economy had tanked, groceries were out go sight and they were spitting and gouging at one another.

And so a great cry arose: Has God brought us here to starve in this wilderness? Sound familiar. Well, God heard their cries and sent manna from heaven. 

Manna

Manna, they said, What is that? Manna? And Moses said, “It is the bread which the Lord has given us to eat.”Little by little the manna would come and finally, finally they came to the Promised Land. We are not at all sure what that manna was but there were enough nutriments that kept them going.

Day by day the manna would come. And they went out and gathered what they needed for that day. But Moses had warned: Do not take more than you need. You can’t save it up. They didn’t listen to the preacher. But they said if we save this stuff up we will have a lot more time to sleep late and not worry about our dumb sheep. 

Horders

Exodus said they took their sacks and hoarded up the manna. Filled them full. But a strange thing occurred. When they opened their sacks the next day they  discovered this manna was molded and had little worms in it. And the stink. It stunk to high heaven. 

But they learned a powerful message: there are some things that cannot be saved or pickled or frozen for another day. Uh-huh. The manna had to be collected every morning. They looked up at God and said: “Every morning?” And God said: "Every...single...morning."

In this Exodus story we find one the hardest lessons any of us to learn. We have to keep coming back and reaching out our hands because the needs of our lives are every single day. 

It doesn’t matter how young or old you are—there are some things you have to give attention to every day. It’s like going to Sunday dinner to eat and we would say: "We’ll eat a lot today and we want have to worry the rest of the week. Nah. It does not work that way. We pig ourselves out at lunch . On the table there is fried chicken and macaroni cheese and a broccoli casserole and real live biscuits and we top it off with banana pudding. Just stuffed, we say. But about  8:00 we say: “You know what I’m a little hungry Honey—how about you.” 

There are some lessons here we all have to think about every single day. And we need to be reminded. The first lesson is this: We have to depend on God first. And the second lesson is: We have to depend on one another.

Jesus is Lord?

Jesus really is Lord. Jesus. Not politics. Not money. Not winning. But about Jesus. So—it isn’t about hammers or sleeping with somebody else’s wife or spitting on those that disagree with us or lying through our teeth or even winning. Folks, Jesus is Lord. And the Ten Commandments are not out of date. No exceptions.

So we may not be all that different than those on that long journey. In the wilderness they learned there were some scary things out there. You could die in that wilderness. For there was sand and oppressive  heat and always they’re looking for water. Not to speak of the scorpions and snakes and disease and enemies just over the next hill. Not to speak of the rebellion in their ranks. And out of necessity they were forced to rely on God and one another. Not just Democrats and not just Republicans—but everybody on that journey. They were not so self-reliant after all. No one is left behind.

Jesus told us: “Pray like this. Give us today our daily bread. It is the reckoning that we live our lives by the hand of God. Give us what we need to keep us going today. Daily Bread. Our daily ration. But it is enough to make it through operations and kids leaving home and life changes and family disruptions and all the whole things we find in our desert. 

Tony Campolo used to tell this funny story. There was this old guy in the backwoods of Kentucky that everybody knew was mean. To everybody. Especially to his family. But about once a year the church would have a revival. And an Evangelist would come and preach and then he would give an altar call. And this old mean man who didn’t come to church much would come down the aisle and kneel and say: “Fill me…Lord fill me.” And when the next revival came around the next year he’d walk down that aisle and say: “Fill me…fill me.” And a few days later he always would slip back into his old habits cursing everybody and drinking a lot. But guess what? The next year when the revival came he would do the same thing. Kneel at the front and say: “Fill me…fill me.”

Everybody would look round and think: “Well there he goes again.”An old woman from the back had enough. She yelled” “Don’t do it Lord. Don’t fill him: he leaks.” Manna must come every single day.

We Depend on Each Other

And out of this the second lesson is: We are to depend on one another. When one of my granddaughters was young she was having a hard time tying her shoes, And I would come over and say.”I can help you!” But she would push me away saying, “I can do this myself.” And it wouldn’t be long before she would come over to me and say, “Help me Grandpa, I just can’t tie my shoes.” What do you think I told her: “No. I helped you yesterday. No. My heart would melt every time and I would say: “Sit in my lap we’ll tie your shoes and put a band aid on your arm.”

We just had  All Saints Day. Who would be a saint to you? Who tied your shoes? Who said: “It’s gonna be alright.” Who said, “The sky is not falling even though you have been diagnosed with cancer or something else.” All of us have somebody that lifted us up and carried us along.  

Hope

I have a friend that went through a terrible divorce. His wife left him with a house full of kids. He had a job that demanded a lot of time and he was just stretched and it was a hard, hard . And so every week I would clip out one of those weird Far Side cartoons and send them to him. I remember one when one deer said to the other one:  “Don’t forget to eat the roses!” My friend never said much about those cartoons—but he made it. But he met this wonderful woman and they have a great marriage.

But that is not the end of the story. A year or two after I sent him all those cartoons I was having a real hard time. And I could not see any way out. And there came in the mail one day this brown envelope. I opened it and guess what? There spilled out of that envelope all those Far Side cartoons I had sent to him. A whole bunch. And he paid me back in mown hard time.

We’re all the same. We stagger out of bed and some times there is a whole lot on our plates.I hope we remember this story about the manna. And during that day I hope we find that manna. Not maybe what we want—but what we need. And we turn around and help somebody else find their manna too.

Manna—what is it? God says: “It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.”

 

Thanks be to God.

(This sermon was preached at the Mount Zion Presbyterian Church, Sandy Springs, SC, November 6, 2022.)

--Roger Lovette/ rogeerlovette.blogspot.com